If I made my lens purchases on the bases of one review or one bad experience ,I would never buy any lenses. Some of my best landscape shots were done with the 18-140 and the D7100.
18-140mm Pretty Disappointing
- Thread starter Woodyg3
- Start date
Nero
Senior Member
Except there seems to be more than one less than positive "review" here. Plus, I didn't say the lens was bad. Just that I'm glad I didn't get it as it doesn't seem to be much better than the lens I got instead so the money I saved ended up going towards another lens that actually was an upgrade.
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Just as an experiment, using a detailed well lit object as subject and shoot Live View to see what is lens and what is AF. The center should be pretty good with the 18-140.
I was always impressed with the 18-105 that I got with my D90, first digital camera but disliked the 18-200 on the long end. Are there any focal distances that you like on the 18-140? Live View testing in good light is the best way to isolate the problem to which which element...optics, AF and technique...is the source of the problem. If it is the AF, you can pick the most needed FL needed to be sharpest and fine tune AF for that. Zooms do not usually have uniform AF error throughout the focal range so making corrections to the full range is not usually possible. Nikon service centers have the equipment to align a lens that is not tracking and a camera but the fine tuning available to you is really only effective at one focal length.
I was always impressed with the 18-105 that I got with my D90, first digital camera but disliked the 18-200 on the long end. Are there any focal distances that you like on the 18-140? Live View testing in good light is the best way to isolate the problem to which which element...optics, AF and technique...is the source of the problem. If it is the AF, you can pick the most needed FL needed to be sharpest and fine tune AF for that. Zooms do not usually have uniform AF error throughout the focal range so making corrections to the full range is not usually possible. Nikon service centers have the equipment to align a lens that is not tracking and a camera but the fine tuning available to you is really only effective at one focal length.
Don't make the decision based on this tread alone! Of the thousands on 18-140mm lenses Nikon made, I might have gotten the bad apple of the bunch.
Don't make the decision based on this tread alone! Of the thousands on 18-140mm lenses Nikon made, I might have gotten the bad apple of the bunch.
Woody, I don't think you did. I still believe 18-140 is too wide a range to get decent results. See this post for a more comprehensive explanation.
Then you would be wrong. There is much more to a shot then super duper sharpness. You could pixel peep all day long any lens and find fault with it.
A boring shot will be just as boring on a 14-24 f/2.8 lens then on the 18-140mm lens. For a walkaround DX lens that is a 3.5-5.6 aperture, it is damn fine lens.
I would highly recommend it without hesitation to anyone with a DX body who is looking to buy such a lens and don't have 2 grand to drop on a super duper sharp lens.
Another thing that I haven't see mentioned is the use of VR. When using fast shutter speed, VR should be turned OFF. AND, when using VR, one should let it do it's work before taking the shot. I've read in Nikon's documentation that while it's trying to stabilize the image, the lens elements are moving so fast as to create a fuzzy picture if you shoot BEFORE it has finished doing it's job.
Maybe, just maybe this could help you.
Maybe, just maybe this could help you.
VR, when active before the shot never finishes before the shutter releases, otherwise it would only stabilize the VF. The only purpose of starting before the shutter opens in to stabilize the image in the VF, and the only time it helps during exposure is when allowed to continuously operate.
Much too much importance is placed on absolute sharpness of a lens. Award winning images anyone would be honored to have in their collection were done with every lens ever made. Any lens able to focus on a subject out resolves what we can see from normal viewing distance and size. Pixel peepers are always needing to in to ridiculous magnification factors to see differences between "great" lenses and "bad" lenses. There are many differences that are not related to sharpness such as color cast, path length based on frequency, and contrast.
Photos fail for many reasons, most ARE failures but lack of lens sharpness does not even rank on the list of reasons. Usually uninteresting uninspiring images are due to nothing related to either the camera or lens but since both of those are the easiest to make go-no-go decisions on, the vast majority of photographer discussions on the web relate to hardware that has little impact on image desirability.
The 18-140 is fine, but its biggest problems are focusing speed and aperture speed. A sports or birds in flight shooter will curse it but serious studio or session work, it would surprize people who assume it is a crummy lens. Given enough light and stopped down....both conditions that make studio sessions stand out....it holds its own. I know my most requested fine art print was done with a 18-105 and D90 and a print is hanging on a gallery wall and seen by thousands of people.
If one has the spare cash, getting higher end lenses are preferred for many reasons such as durability, resetability and wider aperture, more advanced coatings, faster focusing settling time but only aperture and coatings impact the image much and only in more extreme conditions.
I had this discussion just last week with a new photographer who just talked to a salesman in a store and walked out with $5000 in camera 1 lens and a protection filter, when he asked if he needed a better lens. I looked at his photos and asked why he needed any gear, he had a more convenient smart phone. It was a sincere question because his subjects were very well covered by point and shoot or cell phone snap shots. Apparently he never really thought of why he needed a camera and for what resulting images. Available light snap shots really are handled very well by very low cost cameras now and an advanced camera is only needed when one takes full control of the results with specific goals in mind.
As a general rule we ought to answer questions about lenses or even camera bodies by asking for an example of what their current lens/camera failed on to get to understand the real problem they are assuming is the lens. Asking them how they determined it was not sharp enough would be the second question to be asked. Usually it is pixel peeping looking at a tiny detail of a barn-door sized blowup of the image.
What is seen in a blow up has no bearing on the visual impression when viewed at the intended distance and image size. If an image looks dull and lifeless at normal human scale vision sizes, there is a problem and can be identified quickly, usually missed focus, noise or poor lighting. With people or animal shots our brains overload rather defocused images IF the eyes appear clear and detailed. That is part of our evolutionary history and our brains are very sensitive to eyes, as you know from looking at a large crowd and instantly able to pick out the only pair of eyes in the crowd who are focused on us. Even from 50 feet away, we know when someone is focused on us. So seeing an image with eyes, all the resolving attention we are capable of gets directed to the eyes.
Let's look at examples when people ask questions about lenses or cameras...what do they shoot, how deliberately are they shooting and what their intent is when answering camera or lens questions. The most common complaints related image quality are rooted in composition and lighting, unless the capture is just missed focus.
Much too much importance is placed on absolute sharpness of a lens. Award winning images anyone would be honored to have in their collection were done with every lens ever made. Any lens able to focus on a subject out resolves what we can see from normal viewing distance and size. Pixel peepers are always needing to in to ridiculous magnification factors to see differences between "great" lenses and "bad" lenses. There are many differences that are not related to sharpness such as color cast, path length based on frequency, and contrast.
Photos fail for many reasons, most ARE failures but lack of lens sharpness does not even rank on the list of reasons. Usually uninteresting uninspiring images are due to nothing related to either the camera or lens but since both of those are the easiest to make go-no-go decisions on, the vast majority of photographer discussions on the web relate to hardware that has little impact on image desirability.
The 18-140 is fine, but its biggest problems are focusing speed and aperture speed. A sports or birds in flight shooter will curse it but serious studio or session work, it would surprize people who assume it is a crummy lens. Given enough light and stopped down....both conditions that make studio sessions stand out....it holds its own. I know my most requested fine art print was done with a 18-105 and D90 and a print is hanging on a gallery wall and seen by thousands of people.
If one has the spare cash, getting higher end lenses are preferred for many reasons such as durability, resetability and wider aperture, more advanced coatings, faster focusing settling time but only aperture and coatings impact the image much and only in more extreme conditions.
I had this discussion just last week with a new photographer who just talked to a salesman in a store and walked out with $5000 in camera 1 lens and a protection filter, when he asked if he needed a better lens. I looked at his photos and asked why he needed any gear, he had a more convenient smart phone. It was a sincere question because his subjects were very well covered by point and shoot or cell phone snap shots. Apparently he never really thought of why he needed a camera and for what resulting images. Available light snap shots really are handled very well by very low cost cameras now and an advanced camera is only needed when one takes full control of the results with specific goals in mind.
As a general rule we ought to answer questions about lenses or even camera bodies by asking for an example of what their current lens/camera failed on to get to understand the real problem they are assuming is the lens. Asking them how they determined it was not sharp enough would be the second question to be asked. Usually it is pixel peeping looking at a tiny detail of a barn-door sized blowup of the image.
What is seen in a blow up has no bearing on the visual impression when viewed at the intended distance and image size. If an image looks dull and lifeless at normal human scale vision sizes, there is a problem and can be identified quickly, usually missed focus, noise or poor lighting. With people or animal shots our brains overload rather defocused images IF the eyes appear clear and detailed. That is part of our evolutionary history and our brains are very sensitive to eyes, as you know from looking at a large crowd and instantly able to pick out the only pair of eyes in the crowd who are focused on us. Even from 50 feet away, we know when someone is focused on us. So seeing an image with eyes, all the resolving attention we are capable of gets directed to the eyes.
Let's look at examples when people ask questions about lenses or cameras...what do they shoot, how deliberately are they shooting and what their intent is when answering camera or lens questions. The most common complaints related image quality are rooted in composition and lighting, unless the capture is just missed focus.
Stan, Your comments are more general than the specific 18-140 discussion in this thread. Allow me to add an even broader observation:
I agree with almost everything you say. What I ask you to consider, however, is that it does not apply to wildlife photography. I'm not talking squirrels on a lawn or egrets on the local pond. I cannot count the number of shots I have taken over the years that left me disappointed because I only ever saw one animal of its kind, or I observed a special situation that would have been a great shot, on a multi-week trip - but it was too far away: that beautiful rare quetzal sitting up high on a avocado tree in Costa Rica, that intensely colored kingfisher on the other side of the river in Ecuador, that female lion taking a shit in a distance in South Africa, or that tiger crossing a river in Nepal more than a quarter-mile away. I've had days where more than half of my pictures might have been keepers if only I had a longer or sharper lens.
Pro wildlifers solve this problem by doing two things: they spend $5-10K+ on long AND sharp glass, and they hang around the same area for days on end until they have the shot they want. When you are married and travel with the wife, neither is an option.
This is why I pixel-peep, and I suspect there are many like me. Sharpness is crucial to me because no matter how much money I spend, that lens is still too short for a lot of pics. If the lens is pin-sharp, however, I can sometimes still get a decent crop that has at least web quality, which is what most people are happy with these days anyway. I'm adding a 200-500 to the 300 PF I already had because at the same crop frame, the shot is sharper (no surprise). I am eyeing a Sigma 100-400 even though its reach is shorter, because it is much lighter than the 200-500 and according to some reviews and comparisons I saw is also pin-sharp. (Naturally, weight is the other factor to consider for remote wildlife shooting.)We all shoot different subjects, and this means our requirements and our likes are different. I happily shoot lots of other subjects and care far less about the sharpness of the lenses I use for that. When it comes to shooting faraway animals, though, lens sharpness is almost ALL I care about, and every pixel counts. No change in composition or lighting is going to help me here.
What triggers me to post this is that there is a tendency among photographers to bash pixel-peepers. Sometimes that's for good reasons. When it comes to long lenses, it is not.
LOL. I did not know I would be opening such a can of worms here.
Some of you are really overthinking this. Also, some of you have strayed way off topic.
Here is what I see as the situation. The 18-140mm has given many photographers very good and reasonably sharp results. Mine does not give sharp results at any aperture or shutter speed, and this is not VR or focus fine tuning related. It's just a bad copy.
Let me say this again. Based on the feedback here, it is clear that I GOT A BAD COPY.
By the way, I think I got a BAD COPY of a generally good lens.
Finally, I just want to add that the lens I got must have slipped through quality control and is simply not up to standards. You might say that I just got a BAD COPY.
Some of you are really overthinking this. Also, some of you have strayed way off topic.
Here is what I see as the situation. The 18-140mm has given many photographers very good and reasonably sharp results. Mine does not give sharp results at any aperture or shutter speed, and this is not VR or focus fine tuning related. It's just a bad copy.
Let me say this again. Based on the feedback here, it is clear that I GOT A BAD COPY.
By the way, I think I got a BAD COPY of a generally good lens.
Finally, I just want to add that the lens I got must have slipped through quality control and is simply not up to standards. You might say that I just got a BAD COPY.
LOL. I did not know I would be opening such a can of worms here.
Some of you are really overthinking this. Also, some of you have strayed way off topic.
Here is what I see as the situation. The 18-140mm has given many photographers very good and reasonably sharp results. Mine does not give sharp results at any aperture or shutter speed, and this is not VR or focus fine tuning related. It's just a bad copy.
Let me say this again. Based on the feedback here, it is clear that I GOT A BAD COPY.
By the way, I think I got a BAD COPY of a generally good lens.
Finally, I just want to add that the lens I got must have slipped through quality control and is simply not up to standards. You might say that I just got a BAD COPY.
I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I really think you got a BAD COPY!!!!