Nikon 200-500 5.6 VR, picture quality degradation after using with the TC 14E iii

Can any one please help me here,
My 200-500 mounted on my D500 was working brilliantly with amazing micro-contrast, until I added 1.4 TC iii to it.. the pictures were soft (I shoot raw). I took the kit to Nikon Service, and asked them to do whatever is needed to make my pictures sharp. They did whatever they could which did improve the quality a bit, but i was not happy with it. Finally I ditched the TC. Now when I am using it with the camera the picture quality is not what it used to be before the TC came in my life. I want my pictures (that micro-contrast) to be what they used to be. The nikon service guys tell me that they have done no changes/correction to the lens. Can some one please help me..please.

Also is there any factory reset for the such lenses that I can do.

I tried the AF fine tune in Steve's book that I purchased solely to solve this problem. That din't help much.

It sounds like they adjusted AF operation for the combo of the lens with tc as you requested. I've used several tc's (3x 1.4 and 1x 1.7) and all have required a noticable AF fine tune adjustment over just the lens itself. You should be able to AF fine tune just the body and lens but it may not be possible to get to the previous af calibration with out sending the body and lens back to Nikon to be re-calibrated as a pair. The AF fine tune has limits and if they applied a compensation beyond what you can correct for, they would have to make the change. I tried the 1.4 tc on my 200-500 a long time ago and did notice the combo put my af fine tune to a maximum value and I suspect I could have gone a little further if I was able. I never liked the 1.4 on the 200-500 so I erased that pairing from my af fine tune settings.
Now, the complicated part. The test stations that are used by Nikon Service have a built in bias (error) that requires af fine tune corrections on the order of 7-8 units toward the back over factory new settings. Thus, if the lens alone required +14 units before, it will now require +21-22 which is beyond the limit of AFFT.
Bottom line, the best solution is to send the body/lens pair back and see if they can calibrate them together.
If you have tried AF fine tune and aren't bumping up against the +/- 20 maximums, you may want to look at how you are doing the calibration. It's not hard, but there are many small things that can trip you up.

Thanks for the feedback, Warren.
I will attempt the AFFT again .. I find that it is very hard to stabilise the camera with the lens and press the OK button. I think that is a suspect in my AFFT process. I tried mounting on a heavy duty ball head and also on a gimbal but unable to get rid of that small vibration. Perhaps nikon guys have much rigid support to tune it.
If I fail again, i will take it to them and ask them to reset everything they did earlier to accommodate the TC.
Will report back on the progress. In the mean time I will post some pictures just to ensure that my expectations are not unreasonable.

There is one more thing I will do, I will mount it on my D750 and check.. if that works... It will mean I should just reset my AFFT on the D500 and get the AF sensors cleaned up.
Do you think that makes sense?

Thanks again.

" I find that it is very hard to stabilise the camera with the lens and press the OK button."

Manually adjust the AF Fine tune in that case. A LensAlign tool works well.

You may find improvements, and you might even find better image quality than when you started, but know that this process s akin to "stepping in the same river twice" as there are a number of variables and compromises that have been, and will be, made along the way. I have a 200-500 that needed service and came back repaired and tuned quite well on the long end (which is where I shoot). But I have also had my D500 serviced (by APS) on a separate occasion and found no changes in AF performance. Roger Cicala talks a lot about tuning lenses and his posts at the Lens Rentals blog and at DPR help explain why it is as much art as it is science.

Good luck,

--Ken

I will give it a shot, Alan. Thanks

Replytoken said:

You may find improvements, and you might even find better image quality than when you started, but know that this process s akin to "stepping in the same river twice" as there are a number of variables and compromises that have been, and will be, made along the way. I have a 200-500 that needed service and came back repaired and tuned quite well on the long end (which is where I shoot). But I have also had my D500 serviced (by APS) on a separate occasion and found no changes in AF performance. Roger Cicala talks a lot about tuning lenses and his posts at the Lens Rentals blog and at DPR help explain why it is as much art as it is science.

Good luck,

--Ken

Click to expand...

Ken,
I will try to check with the science (since it is easier to understand) first, then move over to the art part of it.
Let me look through the blogs you are referring to.

Thanks & Cheers,
Imtiyaz

This is as good a place as any to ask this question: my understanding is that AF fine tune addresses issues of front- and back-focusing. In other words, situations where the lens actually focuses ahead of or behind the point you thought you focused at. It doesn't do anything to make the lens sharper at the actual point of achieved focus. You can actually check this by shooting something with a lot of front-to-back detail, like a lawn or thick stacked forest.

Do I misunderstand this? It seems to me that unsharpness is likely to be caused by a lot of issues, of which front/back focus in only one, and usually a minor one. Am I missing something?

Imtiaz said:

Ken,
I will try to check with the science (since it is easier to understand) first, then move over to the art part of it.
Let me look through the blogs you are referring to.

Thanks & Cheers,
Imtiyaz

Click to expand...

Yes, there is a bit of art in what you are doing, but I was mostly referring to the service technicians. At times they have to make choices about what to correct, and what will not be corrected because certain corrections may be (somewhat) mutually exclusive. They might, for example, be able to fine tune the lens for a certain focal length at the expense of other focal lengths (e.g. 500mm vs. 200mm). This does not mean that a lens cannot often be improved by a service technician, but it most likely will not be tuned perfectly across all aspects. Roger, and I believe Thom Hogan, have talked about the challenges and costs of manufacturing a lens and how price points play into QC. I do not want to discourage you, as it sounds like they may have done little to your lens on its initial visit, but there are a number of parts involved in adjusting a lens, and re-adjusting a lens back to a prior state most likely involves as much art as science when the technician is working on the lens.

--Ken

Here's something simple you can try. Assuming you did not have af fine tune on before, turn it on and add +8 units of comp. Try it and see if it's like it was.

eaj101 said:

This is as good a place as any to ask this question: my understanding is that AF fine tune addresses issues of front- and back-focusing. In other words, situations where the lens actually focuses ahead of or behind the point you thought you focused at. It doesn't do anything to make the lens sharper at the actual point of achieved focus. You can actually check this by shooting something with a lot of front-to-back detail, like a lawn or thick stacked forest.

Do I misunderstand this? It seems to me that unsharpness is likely to be caused by a lot of issues, of which front/back focus in only one, and usually a minor one. Am I missing something?

Click to expand...

That's correct. If the OP isn't seeing froth / back focus, then AFFT isn't the issue.

The larger problem is that people think that AFFT somehow affect sharpness. It absolutely doesn't. It affects where the sharpness is in in the image in relation to the AF point. Ideally, you want them in the same place

eaj101 said:

This is as good a place as any to ask this question: my understanding is that AF fine tune addresses issues of front- and back-focusing. In other words, situations where the lens actually focuses ahead of or behind the point you thought you focused at. It doesn't do anything to make the lens sharper at the actual point of achieved focus. You can actually check this by shooting something with a lot of front-to-back detail, like a lawn or thick stacked forest.

Do I misunderstand this? It seems to me that unsharpness is likely to be caused by a lot of issues, of which front/back focus in only one, and usually a minor one. Am I missing something?

Click to expand...

Like Steve mentioned, all that you said makes logical sense. I must agree with you on that.
I also feel lack of reasonable micro-contrast in a picture can be because of minute loss of focus, which could be attributed to the issue of front focus or back focus.

OK, I find that my 200-500 is innocent.!!

I mounted it on my D750 and took the same shots that I took with the D500. There is a marked improvement in the sharpness; almost what it used to be.
So for now, I will conclude that there are some settings in my D500 that have changed. I will reset the camera and check.
If that fails, I will visit the service center.

Please let me know if my thought process/approach is sensible.

I will post the updates after my D500 reset experiment. I must mention that i got the firmware updated when i had given it to Nikon with the TC, would that be a suspect?

Cheers,
Imtiyaz

Looks like its a question of adding or removing shims from behind the lens mount to get it into the fine tune zone. I suspect Nikon adjusted the shims when you sent it in. The screwdriver is in your hands.

Hello,

In continuation to to solve the focus issues with my kit (D500+200-500, 5.6) after testing the lens with my D750 and concluding with the verdict of lens being innocent,
my focus was to confirm if my D500 is fine. I reset the camera and attached my trusty nikkor 17-55mm F2.8 to the D500 and started testing.
I think I notice a little bit of back focusing issue, but I am not sure..
Other than that I found no issues.

I am attaching a picture of a turkey that I photographed, thankfully this bird has enough textures to form a reasonable opinion.
Please let me know what you think.
EXIF is spot meter, 55mm, f2.8, ISO 140, EV 0 (manual mode with auto ISO)

Cheers,
Imtiyaz

It will always look better with a shorter llens ..you need to put the 200-500 back and give us some shots.
I assume the auto AF on the D500 is giving you figures within range.

Imtiaz said:

Can any one please help me here,
My 200-500 mounted on my D500 was working brilliantly with amazing micro-contrast, until I added 1.4 TC iii to it.. the pictures were soft (I shoot raw). I took the kit to Nikon Service, and asked them to do whatever is needed to make my pictures sharp. They did whatever they could which did improve the quality a bit, but i was not happy with it. Finally I ditched the TC. Now when I am using it with the camera the picture quality is not what it used to be before the TC came in my life. I want my pictures (that micro-contrast) to be what they used to be. The nikon service guys tell me that they have done no changes/correction to the lens. Can some one please help me..please.

Also is there any factory reset for the such lenses that I can do.

I tried the AF fine tune in Steve's book that I purchased solely to solve this problem. That din't help much.

Click to expand...

Simple, solution don't use a TC in the first place, with fine tuning it works in many cases but every time you zoom in and out the performance varies ever so slightly this is magnified with the TC.

Look there are so many people that are happy using a TC on the 200-500, the lens is amazingly good but adding a TC may work sometimes and sometimes Not, i feel its not worth mucking around with as you see you now have lost the magic you had. You will always be chasing your tail.

Pistnbroke said:

It will always look better with a shorter llens ..you need to put the 200-500 back and give us some shots.
I assume the auto AF on the D500 is giving you figures within range.

Click to expand...

Hi Pistnbroke,

This is what i notice with the 200-500 back on my D500...
The focusing speed has considerably reduced, that could be because of overcast weather although i was shooting it wide open and fully zoomed in at 500mm.
I noticed that closer objects were sharper than the one at at distance, closer I mean 10 to 30 meters and by distance I mean 50 to a 70 meters. I would guess.

I will go on one more shoot on little brighter day at the same place and post those pictures as well.

Like Etching House said,
I really dont want to end up chasing my own tail. I want to get done with it one way or the other.

So here are some of the picture cropped for 100% view shot in raw form. I have made no changes whatsoever except cropping them. Please let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Imtiyaz

The all look soft and horrible to me ...why dont you try Jpeg fine with picture control at +9 to give you something to compare with?

Imtiaz said:

I really dont want to end up chasing my own tail. I want to get done with it one way or the other.

Click to expand...

This may be a challenging approach for BIF. Many of us have to tackle sorting out issues between gear and technique. You may need to allow a bit of time to work out any issues. It can take time to learn how to best take advantage of a lens and body when shooting BIF. And I say this a person who owns a D500 and 200-500 lens. This combination requires a lot more attention than my D300 with my 70-200 or 300 AF-S lens. It is doable, but it also required me to up my game.

Good luck,

--Ken

I use my 200-500 on my D600. I set picture control to Vivid and sharpening to +9. In fact all my camera's are set up this way. The attached image was taken using D600/200-500.

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Imtiaz said:

View attachment 14872View attachment 14873View attachment 14874View attachment 14875

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Hi at least your listening which makes trying to help worth while.

I feel your asking a lot from things that are not specifically designed to do what you asking with out some level of compromise on performance or image quality. Sure they work to degree but what is acceptable result is the question, its all tied to light gathering.

I would be going back to basics and filtering everything I am doing, starting with the drawing board, erase everything and start again, first I would take a look in the mirror and ask myself why what and how am I doing that's right or wrong, (a process of illimitation), is my shooting technique up to par, are my expectations realistic, what is the right path, the right tools and the right application.......is the focusing technique correct, am I using spot metering matrix, I would do a deep study or revision on Steve's book of focusing and shooting techniques because I feel based on what I see and read there are some fundamental expectations your looking for that will drive you nuts not finding a solution, I mean your in an area where you have no real room for error, and dealing with a level of expectation that's always going to be on a knife edge or right or wrong.

Occasionally I use a TC 1.4 on a 300 2.8 and I can tell the difference, the image quality is still acceptable, when I use the TC 2x III I see a significate difference in focusing speed an sharpness at 100%, and the results are just acceptable, OK why I am I saying this you may ask, well your using a excellent F5.6 Zoom lens, at F5.6, on a Cropped sensor expecting to deliver brilliant tack sharp images, this cocktail dramatically worsens the performance compared to a 2.8 Prime on a D850, So your asking a lot, now add to this that you on a overcast day and their is not a lot of light, the issues become magnified....................ahhhh light the magic pill............have you not noticed how great light helps with focus, sharpness, speed...........i mean take any cheap lens shoot in challenging conditions on subject that's close then the same thing with a flash and you will see the image is tack sharp by comparison regardless of what lens you use (just and example)..what I am saying is you stretching every parameter to or beyond its designee limit........


500mm x 1.4 x 1.5 are you looking for 1050mm ???? its a little bit of tall ask here unless you have so much light on your side...........the biggest challenge is Light and enough of it, if you had a flash that could shoot this far wouldn't it be great LOL.
Generally I found with TCs the D5 D4s with their massive pixel size was less effected compared to using a cropped sensor.
Generally I found the AF fine tuning on zooms was in need of retuning more often than a Prime lens, with zooms I needed to average things out to reach a compromise point, even than they would shift more often than not.

The 200-500 lens is excellent, the D500 is ok, the TC is good on PRIMES, the weak link in your combo is the lens, you need to use a 400 2.8, 600mm F4 for best results, or a flash that hasn't been invented yet LOL.
I mean there are people that are getting acceptable results with your combo but at what standard of quality is purely a peroneal thing.

First comes the subject and composition, second the light, third focus, fourth the speed............
A camera is a toll it only records a combination of time light and speed.
Only an opinion
OZ down under

Perhaps you are right. May be I am asking for too much out of my kit, which I have started to realise has its limitation. With an aperture of 5.6 light does play huge role in the outcome. There are also a lot of things in the department of camera configuration specifically in focus settings and metering. I made some changes in that today. I used group auto focus with high light weighted metering, instead of spot metering and spot focus ( i was loosing the focus often, hence made this change). Focus tracking also was changed from fast to normal.

I shot this black kite almost in the middle of the day and the sun is right above my head. That is probably the strongest light I can get. I am posting a cropped raw converted as it is to a JPG and with one with the shadows recovered and sharpened. The bird covered no more than 10% of my frame. What you see below is around 30% of the complete frame.

I also noticed a honey bee tailing this kite.. its legs are visible to an extent which makes me feel, this is as far as I can go with my kit.
Let me know if it so .. or there is still some more juice in my kit to squeeze.

Cheers,
Imtiyaz

Larry Shuman said:

I use my 200-500 on my D600. I set picture control to Vivid and sharpening to +9. In fact all my camera's are set up this way. The attached image was taken using D600/200-500.View attachment 14878

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Very nice, I like it

Oz Down Under