Nikon Introduces a 180-400mm/f4 AF-S VR with Built-in 1.4x Teleconverter

The 180-400 has better wide open MTF than the 200/2

 

That might be because it's at f/4? The 200 f/2 MTF never looks all that good (I keep vaguely expecting an update), but in practice it's very sharp. But I don't claim that the 200 f/2 with a TC is a true replacement optically for the 180-400 (or even the old 200-400) - it's not that good with a TC - just that I quite like having f/2 available at the 200mm end.

 

This is an inconvenience but much less so than applying / removing a conventional TC.

 

Yes. I stand by my "f/4 for when the players are playing tennis, f/5.6 for when they're sitting down at change of ends on the far side of the court" theory. It's just not something I do often enough to justify a $10K+ lens!

 

All the grumbling online suggests many people want it but can't afford it or justify its cost. If people didn't want it, the 180-400 threads wouldn't be so active.

 

Well, some of it's from me, and I'll talk about all kinds of things I don't want (partly to make sure I really don't want them). I don't claim it's a useless lens even for me, just that I'd find a lot of the rest of the expensive end of Nikon's range more useful. I'm not in the "talk about this because it's preposterously expensive, what were Nikon thinking?" camp - but I can be interested in what it's technically capable of, who else might use it, and whether this makes sense for Nikon's corporate strategy without actually wanting one. If I won a lottery I'd probably add one to my collection, just in case.

All the grumbling online suggests many people want it but can't afford it or justify its cost. If people didn't want it, the 180-400 threads wouldn't be so active.

In that sense I wouldn't mind driving a BMW, wearing a Rolex watch ..., but I can't justify the cost.

 

When I bought the 200-400mm/f4 AF-S VR in 2006, I thought the $5100 price tag was expensive (and it was), but even though you factor in inflation, the 180-400mm/f4 makes that look like a bargain. Of course I wouldn't mind having a 180-400mm/f4, but it is hard to justify the cost, especially since I still have the 200-400mm/f4.

 

While I have no hard sales figures, apparently the Canon 200-400mm/f4 with 1.4x TC has been selling relatively well for its price tag ($11000). If one shoots motor sports such as auto racing, bicycle racing, soccer, American football ..., the ability to quickly engage and disengage the built-in TC so that you effectively have a 200-560mm zoom (or 180-560mm zoom in the case of Nikon) can be a major advantage. Otherwise, adding and removing an external TC between the body and lens still takes valuable seconds when you can potentially miss important moments.

 

Personally, I am more a wildlife photographer than sports photographer such that 400mm is on the short side even on DX. If I need to shell out that kind of money, I would rather have a 600mm/f4 FL.

For $12k they can keep it. I'll gladly lug around my 180, 300, 400, & 600mm primes.

Not appealing: $12K and almost 8 lbs of metal (even heavier than the 200-400). Edited January 15, 2018 by Mary Doo

If one considers that one stop increase comes with a doubling of the price and two stops a quadrupling, I calculated the expected cost of the 180-400 as the weighted sum of the 200, 300, 400, and 500mm primes: 5700/4+5300/2+11600/2+9300/2 = 14525 EUR. The sum of the total weight of the primes is 3+3+3.8+3.1 = 12.9kg and if weight them considering the aperture difference between the zoom and the primes, I estimate 3/4 + 3/2 + 3.8/2 + 3.1/2 = 5.7kg as the sum of expected weights of high quality primes of those correspondingly smaller apertures (to match the maximum aperture of the zoom at each focal length). So in that sense the new zoom saves both money and weight. Admittedly this analysis involves a lot of approximating and in practice one would not carry all those primes at once.

 

But, of course the extra stop(s) are useful as well and at least for me the limit of hand-held use of a lens is around 3kg max. Also if you have several lenses and one of them stops working you can continue shooting with the others, whereas if you have all your eggs in one basket, well, ...

Edited January 15, 2018 by ilkka_nissila

I have always thought these lenses are a great idea, You can add and remove the TC easily and instantly. Doing this conventionally with a big lens (any lens) is a pain, and you can optimize the performance of the lens easily i.e. you do not have to compromise optical performance by having to keep the TC engaged when overlapping with a non-TC focal length when shooting fast changing situations. Also, the TC needs only to be optimized for the longer focal lengths yielding better 560mm performance, although I am not sure this is the case here.

 

It is clearly a "prestige me too" product, and for this reason I am not sure that Nikon really will know or care precisely how many units Canon have sold, but we have to assume someone, and probably not marketing people, have requested they have one in their range.

I have always thought these lenses are a great idea, You can add and remove the TC easily and instantly. Doing this conventionally with a big lens (any lens) is a pain.

At least the way I use big telephoto lenses, they are always on a big tripod. Unmounting the body from the lens to add (or remove) a teleconverter is not that difficult, but it involves three mounting/unmounting steps and that does take a little time. The ability to engage and disengage a 1.4x TC almost instantaneously is attractive, but a few years ago I was shocked by how expensive Canon's 200-400mm/f4 with 1.4x TC was; it was more than twice as expensive as what I paid for the Nikon version without the TC, and now Nikon's version is in the same price range as the Canon.

 

The down side is the overall weight increase, and sometimes you want to use 1.7x TC or 2x TC, which will still be external. (I would say a 1.4x is probably the most useful type, though.) And a 560mm/f5.6 lens is still on the slow side that in my mind hard to justify the $12K price tag. Both the 500mm/f4 and 600mm/f4 lensea are less costly.

I would think at the price point, except for the wealthy enthusiast or highly successful pro specialist, more will be rented than sold.

I'm still unclear whether the 800+TC14 is optically better than the latest 600+TC20 for real reach.

 

I am reasonably confident that the lower TC factor wins in almost all cases of reasonably competent primes and generic TCs. The 800 may be the sharpest of the Nikon teles wide open, and can even compete against the bare 600mm with the 1.25X matched converter mounted on the 800mm. Nikon's MTFs show this:

 

Nikon | Imaging Products | AF-S NIKKOR 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR

Nikon | Imaging Products | AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4E FL ED VR

 

Furthermore since a matched converter is available it should be preferred to a generic TC. Both the 180-400 and 800 Nikon-calculated MTFs with supplied TCs in use are remarkable and comparable to other lenses without TC.

 

Imatest measurements were performed here (though the 600 is the previous, VR version)

 

Nikon 800mm f/5.6E VR Review

 

The 800 gives about 35% higher resolution than the 600 G VR + TC-14E II wide open, and the 800+1.25X gives 57% higher resolution than 600+1.7X wide open. He didn't test the 2X but it seems clear that the longer lens leads the pack in this case both in theoretical simulations and lab tests and it's hard to believe that using a 2X would help the 600 catch up.

 

AFAIK Nasim uses a flash in his imatest experiments to avoid blur due to lens movement. That may be why the 800 shines in his tests beyond what it does in some other test sites who don't use a flash and so the other results may reflect the quality of the tripod mount as much as the lens itself.

Thanks, Ilkka. I'll bear that in mind if I go a-hiring next time I make it to somewhere like Yellowstone. Sadly the 1.25xTC still leaves me a bit short compared with the 600 + TC20, The TC14 is much closer. I suspect I'd hire both (if not also a TC20 for manual focus) though, especially since the 1.25 is "part of" the 800mm. I'm not likely to be buying any of these any time soon - and if I did, I'd have trouble getting them to anywhere it's worth using them. The same probably couldn't be said of the 400mm f/2.8 that's still on my lust list (if there's something I know about, it's being dim) - though it may be mostly for providing very expensive pictures of squirrels.

I read in some reviews that the 800 is particularly good at long distances which I believe to match your application. Steven Stafford uses the 800mm and you might want to look at his mammals work. I don't believe a 2X would be good for long distance work.

Thanks, Ilkka. I'll do some more research.

The correct name is Simon Stafford, sorry about the error.

Ah, thank you. I was struggling a bit! (That said, the "what's in my bag" section of his web site does only go up to a 600mm + TC14. But it might be out of date.) Edited January 18, 2018 by Andrew Garrard

He has published many images from the 800mm in the Nikon Owner magazine. Also his winning image in the WPY contest mammals category was with the 800mm. I suppose it's possible he might rent it when needed or the lens may belong to NPS.

Ah, thanks Ilkka. I'll see whether I dare poke him for input!