500mm vs 600mm

[Woodpecker]

I don't mean that I'm disappointed that it's not as sharp as a $15,000 lens, or even a $3500 one like the 500pf. I mean that too often I take a photo and it's just way too soft, even compared to my old 200-500.

Of course the 180-600 doesn't have the biting sharpness compared to the big primes other S line lenses or top primes from the F-mount era and the imatest figures taken from the lens prove that there must be a visible difference, especially on hires sensors and especially at 600mm.

What I find pretty amazing is that you seem to have some sort of incosistency in your results. If you can get sharp images this means that the lens is de facto capable of delivering sharp images, so it is the question what coud be the reason. To be honest, I didn't have this on the radar, but some trustworthy sources have told me that even with Z body plus Z lens they have come in situations where deactivating VR all together produced sharper images. I can only guess why this can happen, but it could be an explanation. Different generations of VR and lenses behave differently and are able to cause this kind of effect. People changing from 500 f4 G to E are just one some that can sng this song.

I uee the 180-600 mostly for its flexibility and in a walk-about type of scenario. Shooting handheld there can be lots of things happening that affect IQ. If I am after optimum quality I have to pay tribute to physics, take the bigger and/or more expensive and/or heavier stuff and try to work more stationary .

Nevertheless I started already to regret having traded my 500PF. But I still have my 500 f4 and I had to make some compromise to get the money together for changing to mirrorless and if I had the money I'd really fancy the Z 400 f4.5 and the Z 600 6.3 ...

 

[joe43]

I have a Z9 and both the 500mm pf and the Z mount 600mm pf, which I got about a month ago. I prefer usinng the 600mm pf as it is better balanced on my Z9 than the 500mm pf and if a 1.4x tc is added to the 500mmpf. Since I still have a D850 and D500, I am keeping both lenses. If I were only a Z mount shooter, I would be selling my 500mm pf.

 

[ssheipel]

Haven't used the combo since I got my 600 f4, but I shot A LOT with the Z9 and 500 pf (with the 1.4 attached much of the time) and loved it a lot. Light and easy to handle, great lens, period, even with the TC atached, and sure there's the aperture and bokeh thing, but you're going to get the same results in that regard I suspect with the 180-600. Other consideration if the joy of having a zoom, but I got over that pretty quickly when the choice was the anchor weight of my 180-400 tc or the featherweight 500 pf Also you can also of course add tc on the 180-600. There, I've been no help whatseover Tough decision -- answer rests in having both lenses

 

[SCoombs]

Of course the 180-600 doesn't have the biting sharpness compared to the big primes other S line lenses or top primes from the F-mount era and the imatest figures taken from the lens prove that there must be a visible difference, especially on hires sensors and especially at 600mm.

What I find pretty amazing is that you seem to have some sort of incosistency in your results. If you can get sharp images this means that the lens is de facto capable of delivering sharp images, so it is the question what coud be the reason. To be honest, I didn't have this on the radar, but some trustworthy sources have told me that even with Z body plus Z lens they have come in situations where deactivating VR all together produced sharper images. I can only guess why this can happen, but it could be an explanation. Different generations of VR and lenses behave differently and are able to cause this kind of effect. People changing from 500 f4 G to E are just one some that can sng this song.

I uee the 180-600 mostly for its flexibility and in a walk-about type of scenario. Shooting handheld there can be lots of things happening that affect IQ. If I am after optimum quality I have to pay tribute to physics, take the bigger and/or more expensive and/or heavier stuff and try to work more stationary .

Nevertheless I started already to regret having traded my 500PF. But I still have my 500 f4 and I had to make some compromise to get the money together for changing to mirrorless and if I had the money I'd really fancy the Z 400 f4.5 and the Z 600 6.3 ...

I have definitely been messing around with VR because I have suspected at times it is causing issues. Certainly with my 180-600 I came to the conclusion after some testing that it experiences the phenomenon where VR use seems to contribute to soft images at higher shutter speeds. With older VR lenses this was pretty widely understood to be the case, but you haven't heard much about it in more recent times, and for instance I specifically tested this out with my 200-500 and found I could leave it on all the time without a problem.

However if I had to guess I'd say the most likely candidate might be AF inconsistency. I believe (but can't recall definitively) that Steve has commented, and I know for sure that I have seen other notable experts (e.g. Thom Hogan) talk about having found that with consumer grade lenses rather than the higher end professional (in Z terms, the S-line) stuff that they have found that there can be more inconsistency in terms of where the AF actually lands for any given shot. I believe the theory has been that it comes down to tolerances, meaning that one 180-600 might be a lot tighter and tend to land on good focus most of the time while another might be more prone to being just off.

EDIT: I should add, by the way, for the greater purposes of this thread, that especially because of what I've found with the VR that the 180-600's lack of a physical VR switch is one point against it for me and my decision between the two lenses. If I keep the 180-600, I am going to need to be able to swap VR on and off quickly if I need to go from a static shot to a bird flying or something. With the 180-600 the best I have been able to work out for that is to put VR on the i-menu or on the top of the "my menu," which I have set to the movie record button. Either way, it's not nearly as efficient as I would like it to be and will cost shots. I wish there were a way to program a button to toggle VR, but there isn't right now.

 

[Woodpecker]

I have definitely been messing around with VR because I have suspected at times it is causing issues. Certainly with my 180-600 I came to the conclusion after some testing that it experiences the phenomenon where VR use seems to contribute to soft images at higher shutter speeds. With older VR lenses this was pretty widely understood to be the case, but you haven't heard much about it in more recent times, and for instance I specifically tested this out with my 200-500 and found I could leave it on all the time without a problem.

However if I had to guess I'd say the most likely candidate might be AF inconsistency. I believe (but can't recall definitively) that Steve has commented, and I know for sure that I have seen other notable experts (e.g. Thom Hogan) talk about having found that with consumer grade lenses rather than the higher end professional (in Z terms, the S-line) stuff that they have found that there can be more inconsistency in terms of where the AF actually lands for any given shot. I believe the theory has been that it comes down to tolerances, meaning that one 180-600 might be a lot tighter and tend to land on good focus most of the time while another might be more prone to being just off.

Yup, there are certainly more differences betwenn pro grade and consumer lenses beyond IQ and less strict tolerances - in mechanics as well as QA testing thresholds - will be certainly one ofd the main aspects here. I know that they have put serious effort in overcoming the sample variartion issues they had form time to time with some models, but it can still happen. Fortunately until now (knocking on my wooden head) I was on the lcky side and never had to return a lens copy for this kind of reason.

May be you'll find the reason. Perhaps even a service at Nikon could help. My 500 f4 G showed similar symptoms some time ago and the Nikon engineer found out, that the VR unit in gthe lens itself was working outside the tolerance thresholds. After adjusting the problem was gone and I got consistent shapr images again. In the end this kind of lens cn be called a precision instrument, so that in my case the problem didn't (yet ?) show up with the naked lens or the first TC, but with the second the problem was there.
So as an end user you get the feeling of a wobbly contact type of error. Sometimes there, sometime not ...

 

[SCoombs]

Yup, there are certainly more differences betwenn pro grade and consumer lenses beyond IQ and less strict tolerances - in mechanics as well as QA testing thresholds - will be certainly one ofd the main aspects here. I know that they have put serious effort in overcoming the sample variartion issues they had form time to time with some models, but it can still happen. Fortunately until now (knocking on my wooden head) I was on the lcky side and never had to return a lens copy for this kind of reason.

May be you'll find the reason. Perhaps even a service at Nikon could help. My 500 f4 G showed similar symptoms some time ago and the Nikon engineer found out, that the VR unit in gthe lens itself was working outside the tolerance thresholds. After adjusting the problem was gone and I got consistent shapr images again. In the end this kind of lens cn be called a precision instrument, so that in my case the problem didn't (yet ?) show up with the naked lens or the first TC, but with the second the problem was there.
So as an end user you get the feeling of a wobbly contact type of error. Sometimes there, sometime not ...

I'm sitting out at a pond right now with ducks and geese and both lenses and another few thoughts are occurring as I swap back and forth.

1) The 180-600 is much heavier, and with the need to turn VR off at high speeds even at those high speeds in some situations, at some angles, etc. I may be holding it with enough shakiness to introduce some minor blur that comes across as softness. This would make sense as it wouldn't be consistent.

2) The 500pf has better contrast and this could be leading to slightly more accurate AF performance in less than perfect light.

3) The 500pf has a variety of lens coatings the 180-600 doesn't have which help in specific lighting scenarios. It's possible I am getting good shots out of the 180-600 I'm situations where those coatings are less important while losing sharpness to the various things the coatings are designed to deal with, so again it wouldn't very consistent and it wouldn't always be obvious why a shot was a bit soft in some situations.

 

[Woodpecker]

I'm sitting out at a pond right now with ducks and geese and both lenses and another few thoughts are occurring as I swap back and forth.

Well, I know what it's like wanting to solve a problem and not getting the right idea, but the scenry at this pond must be very boaring if mother nature cant't get you away from these thoughts

1) The 180-600 is much heavier, and with the need to turn VR off at high speeds even at those high speeds in some situations, at some angles, etc. I may be holding it with enough shakiness to introduce some minor blur that comes across as softness. This would make sense as it wouldn't be consistent.

Good point. This is also something Steve is coming up with regularly in his videos, where he classifies himself as "not the steadiest person on earth in terms of handholding"
And it is something that varies not only from person to person, but can well vary from hour to hour for anyone of us.

2) The 500pf has better contrast and this could be leading to slightly more accurate AF performance in less than perfect light.

Never thought about this, but yes. That said this will probably be a difficult one to anaylyze.

3) The 500pf has a variety of lens coatings the 180-600 doesn't have which help in specific lighting scenarios. It's possible I am getting good shots out of the 180-600 I'm situations where those coatings are less important while losing sharpness to the various things the coatings are designed to deal with, so again it wouldn't very consistent and it wouldn't always be obvious why a shot was a bit soft in some situations.

Again, never thought about this, but also a valid possibility. Maybe easier to prove compared to no. 2 though.

All in all I think, it is also a question of the requirements and demand. And that's where often a gap opens between hobbysts, enthusiasts and pros.

If I had had te money I wouldn't have sold the 500PF and the DSLRs when finally switching to mirrorless, but it is as it is now.
And at least for me I can say that for sure the primary reason for not getting the shot or not getting it in the quality I desire is ... myself

 

[bleirer]

I think someone would have to demonstrate to me that a higher contrast score on a mtf test meant better autofocus. I don't know yes or no, but is there evidence?

 

[SCoombs]

I think someone would have to demonstrate to me that a higher contrast score on a mtf test meant better autofocus. I don't know yes or no, but is there evidence?

Let's be clear that I was only mentioning this as an "I wonder." I guess in its favor is the fact that Hogan and some others have mentioned that increasing sharpening in picture controls for the Z9 can improve AF (since the AF works off of the EVF feed), so by the same reasoning if the image that the EVF feed is seeing has somewhat better contrast I can imagine it possible for it to work a bit better.

The main reason I thought of it was that as I swapped between the two lenses back and forth and saw a clear difference in the results for certain subjects but not others, I also noticed the noticeably better contrast in the photos from the 500pf and started to wonder if there could be a connection.