D5500 & 18-200 Zoom lens anomaly ??? URGENT PLEASE

Brian L

Senior Member
My D5500 has a Nikon 18-200 ED2 lens and I've found a strange anomaly. When shooting at the lowest F No ie 3.8 or any other in the Zoom range then the pictures are approx. 1/2 stop underexposed. All other F no's are fine - is this a faulty lens ??
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
My D5500 has a Nikon 18-200 ED2 lens and I've found a strange anomaly. When shooting at the lowest F No ie 3.8 or any other in the Zoom range then the pictures are approx. 1/2 stop underexposed. All other F no's are fine - is this a faulty lens ??
Just to clarify, you have the 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II and when you shoot at the widest aperture a particular focal length allows, e.g. f/3.5 at 18mm or f/5.6 at 200mm, your shots come out approximately one-half stop underexposed. As soon as you move away from the minimum aperture for that particular focal length, your shots are all properly exposed. Is all that correct?

Does this happen with any other of your lenses (assuming you have some you can try)?

Put the camera Mode dial to the green "Auto" setting (full automatic); does the problem continue? If it does, I would say it's time to have a professional take a look at things.
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nickt

Senior Member
Also be aware of your metering mode. If you are in spot or center weighted metering and not aware of it, you can get unexpected exposure results.
What shooting mode are you in? Are you choosing the problem aperture? In other words, are you in Aperture priority? If so, you could have a problem. Or are you just observing underexposure in shots where the camera chose the lowest available f stop? I don't know your experience level, so I ask. For instance, you might be in shutter priority and simply running out of light, but that would be a newbie mistake.
 

Brian L

Senior Member
Just to clarify, you have the 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II and when you shoot at the widest aperture a particular focal length allows, e.g. f/3.5 at 18mm or f/5.6 at 200mm, your shots come out approximately one-half stop underexposed. As soon as you move away from the minimum aperture for that particular focal length, your shots are all properly exposed. Is all that correct?

Does this happen with any other of your lenses (assuming you have some you can try)?

Put the camera Mode dial to the green "Auto" setting (full automatic); does the problem continue? If it does, I would say it's time to have a professional take a look at things.
.....
My level ofexpertise is I would say above average which I why m concerned. I havebeen in touch with Nikon UKand their excellent adviser was able to reproduce the issue with the samecombination. The 'techs' told his that this was 'within parameters and wascaused by the mechanical diaphragm being slightly longer than necessary' BUT itdoes seem to be only this lens camera combination that causes it. This isthe only lens I have unfortunately but trying it in a shop with another 18-200showed the same issue. Changing the body also made no difference. Its too late to return the lens for a different one so I seem to bestuck. P S & A modes are all the same issue which is why I am askingif anyone else has seen this problem or can make any suggestions. NikonUK HAVE offered t check out the equipment but I have been told they are likelyto be 'within tolerance' and returned without any changes
 

Brian L

Senior Member
My level ofexpertise is I would say above average which I why m concerned. I havebeen in touch with Nikon UKand their excellent adviser was able to reproduce the issue with the samecombination. The 'techs' told his that this was 'within parameters and wascaused by the mechanical diaphragm being slightly longer than necessary' BUT itdoes seem to be only this lens camera combination that causes it. This isthe only lens I have unfortunately but trying it in a shop with another 18-200showed the same issue. Changing the body also made no difference. Its too late to return the lens for a different one so I seem to bestuck. P S & A modes are all the same issue which is why I am askingif anyone else has seen this problem or can make any suggestions. NikonUK HAVE offered t check out the equipment but I have been told they are likelyto be 'within tolerance' and returned without any changes

 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
My level of expertise is I would say above average which I why m concerned. I have been in touch with Nikon UK and their excellent adviser was able to reproduce the issue with the same combination. The 'techs' told his that this was 'within parameters and was caused by the mechanical diaphragm being slightly longer than necessary' BUT it does seem to be only this lens camera combination that causes it. This is the only lens I have unfortunately but trying it in a shop with another 18-200 showed the same issue. Changing the body also made no difference. It's too late to return the lens for a different one so I seem to be stuck. P S & A modes are all the same issue which is why I am asking if anyone else has seen this problem or can make any suggestions. Nikon UK HAVE offered t check out the equipment but I have been told they are likely to be 'within tolerance' and returned without any changes
Sounds like you've found your answer. Not the answer I'd like but if Nikon is unwilling to correct what appears to be a known issue I'd have to say you are, in short, screwed. Half a stop of exposure can be pretty easily corrected in post-processing but beyond that it sounds to me your most realistic options boil down to: A. Live with this issue (and fix it in post if you choose to) or, B: Dump the lens and get something else.
...
 

okulo

Senior Member
I realise that this is may be an entirely different problem but I find that I am getting photos which are randomly overexposed. Some just look overexposed and there may be something I have set wrongly (though I can't seem to find anything) but other times, I might take two virtually identical shots a second or two apart and one will be more overexposed than the other.

The camera is set to matrix metering and I tend to use Aperture Priority mode. I have checked the f stops of the affected photos and there is nothing connecting them. However, when I looked at all the camera's setting for two such shots shot, I find that they are all identical apart from the ISO (which is set to 400 with Auto ISO sensitivity control, Maximum sensitivity 6400 - though I have reduced this to 1600 now) on the overexposed image is 5600 and the image which looks more correctly exposed is 3200 but even that one seems to be about one stop overexposed.

I know that I can correct this in Lightroom - or at least compensate for it - but I don't think a camera of this price with an even more expensive lens (18-300mm) should be unable to calculate a correct exposure. I should point out that the images below are the jpgs from my camera, the RAW files all look much more overexposed.


image-001.jpg
image-002.jpg
image-003.jpg
 

Brian L

Senior Member
Hi Okulo - This is showing exactly the same issues I have with my camera/lens combination. Since my last update I have managed to try out the 18-300 Nikon lens and this too exhibits the same over exposure. Try this on your lens. Set to APERTURE mode and set at lowest setting ie F3.5 or whatever and take a picture then take the same picture at say F8 and see if there is a difference. The speed and ISO make no difference to this test so don't worry about them. I'll put money on the lowest F No being around 1 stop darker than the F8 picture. The cause is the mechanical arm in the lens which as a 'acceptable range of variance' according to Nikon !!! Please let me know how you get on trying this and feel free to reply in a PM to me if you want. Either way I'd be really interested in the results !
Brian
 

okulo

Senior Member
Hi Brian, I did as you suggested. These images were taken about two seconds apart. I wouldn't like to try and quantify it but the first one, although not clearly evident in these camera generated jpgs, is definitely darker in Lightroom. It can be seen in the grass and the foliage of the trees, especially the centre left tree.

In this instance, it might appear to be within tolerance but many of my other photos look washed out in Lightroom until I adjust the exposure. My initial delight at this camera (and lens), for which I sold all my older equipment, is slowly turning to disappointment.

The first image is f3.5 1/2500 ISO 400
The second image is f8 1/500 ISO 400

test_0373.jpg


test_0374.jpg
 

Brian L

Senior Member
Hi Okula
I can clearly see the issues you are having which is totally consistent with mine. Unfortunately there is very little you can do about this as it seems to be part of the Nikon system ! What I have done is to set EXPSURE COMPESATION back by 1/3rd for all my pictures and this has helped a little. Don't get me wrong here you have not purchased a 'dud' system because the camera system is excellent giving VERY sharp results with good colour rendition. I took my camera to Ibiza last month for a holiday ad took over 1000 pictures the vast majority turned out perfectly - see examples. MOST camera system will have minor anomalies in exposure but I do admit that if I had known of this issue BEFORE I purchased Nikon I would probably have gone to Canon. Sorry I cannot be of more help however the more people who contact Nikon with this issue then perhaps the sooner they will come out with a solution. The only other thing to try is a - say - Sigma lens and see if there is any difference ? Might try this myself !
 

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okulo

Senior Member
Hi Brian,

Yes, the exposure of your photo looks familiar.

As for trying a Sigma lens, as I said in an earlier post, I just sold all my old kit to buy this camera/lens combination, so another lens is not on the cards.

I'll contact Nikon UK and see what they say; as you said, the more people mention it, the more likely they are to address it. I'm certain that f-stop compensation could be incorporated in firmware.
 

okulo

Senior Member
I don't know how useful this might be but I took a series of deliberately out of focus photos of a fairly neutral surface at every f stop on the 18-300mm f3.5-6.3 in quick succession (so there was no change in the light) and reduced them all to fit in a table for comparison.

It seems to me that there is a bit of a curve which peaks at around f6.3 and then descends again but f22 looks darker than f3.5 if compared directly.

The images in the table are all a quarter actual size so if anybody wants to inspect them, they can be opened at 600x400 in a new tab and flicked back and forth for closer comparison.

If you open f3.5 and f6.3 or f22 and f6.3 in separate tabs and flick between them, the contract is fairly stark and I would not consider that within a reasonable tolerance but my test may be flawed somehow.

Nikon D5500 Exposure Test
 

Brian L

Senior Member
Hi Okulo - This is great work. I can still see the difference in exposure but it does not seem as dramatic as 'real life' pictures and does look as if the system is well within tolerance. I will try this tomorrow and post the results as you have. I'm beginning to think that if we tried this on a different camera / lens from another company then the results would be similar and this is just part of the nature of photography now a days !
 

okulo

Senior Member
Just to be clear, where the four images meet at the centre is where they would blend together if their exposures matched but as can bee seen, there is some difference.

Incidentally, can somebody please tell me how to delete the superfluous attachments in my previous post, they were included in error and I can't seem to get rid of them.


comp-square.jpg
 

Brian L

Senior Member
Hi Okulo - yes now you can see quite q difference. I wonder if anyone else would like to try this test out as well for comparison ? I still think this is caused by the mechanical arm on the lens just not quite syncing with the electronic shutter settings but Imhave no idea how to fix this other than a different lens which has a digital arm linkage. Thanks again for posting such clear images of the issue. Perhaps someone from Nikon would like to jump in here as well ?
 
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