Nikon 55-300mm 4.5-5.6 G ED Dx

Can someone help explain to me the sharpness of the 55-300. I rented a 35mm 1.8
And it's crazy sharp compared to the 55-300


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lindsydiane said:

Can someone help explain to me the sharpness of the 55-300. I rented a 35mm 1.8
And it's crazy sharp compared to the 55-300

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Well, I'm not sure what there is to explain other than to say a prime lens, like your 35mm f/1.8 will, most often, be significantly sharper than a zoom lens. There are exceptions, there are always exceptions, but that being said, Photography is, most always, a juggling act and when it comes to lenses you typically juggle speed -- meaning maximum aperture -- against focal length against overall image quality. Can you have all three in one lens... One that's really fast, with a huge focal length and great edge-to-edge sharpness? Yes you can, but it will cost you; sometimes hugely, depending on just *how* fast you wanna go and just *how* sharp you want your images. It's easy to get into the "Thousands of Dollars" bracket...

Your 55-300mm is, to put it bluntly, a mediocre lens: It provides you a lot of flexibility and it's not all that expensive a lens; the tradeoff is in overall image quality.

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lindsydiane said:

Can someone help explain to me the sharpness of the 55-300. I rented a 35mm 1.8
And it's crazy sharp compared to the 55-300

Click to expand...

Wondering how you are comparing them? The 55-300 does things the 35mm cannot do. The 35mm only does 35mm.

The 55-300 is not a $1000 lens, but it has a reasonable reputation - it's not a bad lens. Certainly there are several lenses that are less good.

I think it would be interesting to see a few of your pictures convincing you of this difference.

Of course, the focal lengths necessarily show difference scenes, but ...

Wondering if your tests included like a hand-held 1/100 second shutter speed, which is easy for the short lens, and tough on the long lens.

Wondering if your tests were like at f/5, which is wide open for the zoom, but stopped down three stops for the 35.

They simply do very different jobs, and should be compared by how well they do that job. Really can't compare them to each other, they cannot do the same job.

For the most part it's for portraits. I took my sons out last night with the two lenses and when I got home you can definitely tell between the two. The 55-300 is more grainy and the 35 is tack sharp that I can count the hairs on their head. So was just curious if I was missing something or doing something wrong.


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lindsydiane said:

For the most part it's for portraits. I took my sons out last night with the two lenses and when I got home you can definitely tell between the two. The 55-300 is more grainy and the 35 is tack sharp that I can count the hairs on their head. So was just curious if I was missing something or doing something wrong.

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Doubtful you're doing anything wrong (your 35mm shots bear out your technique is good); the 35mm f/1.8G is simply a much, much sharper lens.

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What was the lighting condition? And what were the ISO and shutter speed and apertures? Was it the 1/100 second f/5 case? Was the ISO too high trying to deal with the maximum aperture of the zoom? If the light was less than bright sun, that would be my bet.

Casual snapshots might be one thing, but one very main rule for "portraits" is to always stand back at least six feet, better eight feet, and I like ten feet. Use the lens focal length that allows that. Where the camera stands determines perspective, which for portraits, means how large does standing too close make the enlarged nose look?". Subjects tend not to like that look.

For head and shoulders shots, 105mm lenses were considered portrait lenses for 35mm film (and FX), simply because it forced us to stand back that far. This equivalent would be a 70mm lens for DX. A wider view than head and shoulders needs a shorter lens, but not 35mm - which would be what? 3 or 4 feet? Too close. I always thought 50 or maybe 60mm was too short for waist up DX portraits, I had to stand too close. Unless you're doing like full length portraits, 35mm lens would be considered too short for DX portraits. That's what the 85mm f/1.8 is for. So the zoom wins that advantage.

But for a f/5 lens, maybe the issue is the need to provide more light for the portrait, so it can stop down a couple of stops, to get it up to f/8 or f/11, at a decently low ISO. If an issue, this could use flash, or a reflector, or some different situation, less deep shade. For example, if under a tree due to the bright sun, that's good, but reposition subject more out at the edge of the shade, not back in the deepest shade.