Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR DX AF-S Nikkor

Name: Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR DX AF-S Nikkor
Brand: Nikon
Rating: 9.2 (36 reviews)

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Lens Review
Specifications

16-85mm	$513 average price

Lab Test Results

Blur
Chromatic Aberration
Vignetting
Geometric Distortion

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Buy the Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR DX AF-S Nikkor

(From Nikon lens literature) Nikon, Inc. has announced the new AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens, which offers Nikon digital SLR photographers exceptional wide-angle capability along with superb telephoto versatility. The wide-ratio zoom makes this new lens suitable for a broad range of shooting situations, including indoor and outdoor events; streetscapes; and portraits and scenery, making it ideal for everyday use.

SLRGear Review
April 6, 2008
by Andrew Alexander

Released in March 2008, the 16-85mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 can be considered the ''designed-for-digital'' spiritual successor to the popular 24-120mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 VR. The 24-120mm Nikkor gained much popularity with its combination of a convenient range of focal lengths and vibration reduction (VR) technology: however, it was considered by many to be unacceptably soft, and the maximum aperture of ƒ/5.6 by 85mm and longer to be unacceptably slow.

With the 1.5x crop factor inherent in a Nikon APS-C sensor, the lens gives an effective field of view of 24-128mm. Apart from reducing the size of the individual lens elements to fit the smaller sesnor, Nikon has made some changes to the layout of the elements themselves; the 16-85mm features two additional lens elements (up from 15 to 17), one of which is an additional aspherical lens element. To keep the lens affordable, Nikon actually hasn't packed the lens full of its latest technology: the most it boasts is Nikon's Super Integrated Coating to reduce lens flare and ghosting, however, it does integrate Nikon's VR2 vibration reduction.

As a DX lens, it's not designed to cover the full 35mm imaging circle, and unlike some other lens designs which will work at some zoom settings, the 16-85mm will always vignette to some degree when mounted on a film body or a FX sensor body. The D3 will work with the lens, automatically setting itself to DX mode. The lens is a ''G'' style lens, so there is no aperture ring; on older film bodies the lens would be limited to shooting at its smallest aperture.

Focal Length (mm)	16-17	18-23	24-34	35-49	50-69	70-85
Largest aperture	ƒ/3.5	ƒ/3.8	ƒ/4	ƒ/4.5	ƒ/5	ƒ/5.6
Smallest aperture	ƒ/22	ƒ/24	ƒ/25	ƒ/29	ƒ/32	ƒ/36

The lens is available now with a MSRP of $649.

Sharpness
It's hard not to rush to draw comparisons between this lens and its full-frame predecessor, the Nikon 24-120mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, but it's a safe bet that this lens will be of interest to anyone who has shot with and enjoyed using that lens.

In a nutshell, the 16-85mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 is remarkably sharp. Its poorest performance is found only when stopped down to the smallest apertures, where diffraction limiting robs the lens of sharpness. But even at ƒ/22 and 16mm, the lens is still very sharp, not even reaching 3 blur units. At longer focal lengths, the lens becomes much softer, reaching 5-6 blur units by 85mm and ƒ/36.

Any other setting gives excellent results. With the exception of some slight corner softness when used wide open (16mm, ƒ/3.5), image quality is extremely sharp. Optimal performance is attained when stopped down to ƒ/5.6, where the image is sharp across the entire frame: you still see some very slight corner softness at wide angle or full telephoto, but we're splitting hairs here. Results at other apertures - ƒ/8, ƒ/11, ƒ/16 - are all equally impressive.

Overall, the 16-85mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 provides excellent sharpness results, better than we've seen from previous Nikon offerings in this class of lens.

Chromatic Aberration
Tolerance to chromatic aberration is also excellent for this lens. The worst case scenario for the lens occurs at the telephoto end of its range of focal lengths (85mm), where we see around 5/100ths of a percent of frame height of CA. CA is almost non-existent between 24mm and 70mm, and at 16mm we see no more than 3/100ths. It's worth noting that these results appear only in the corners; in the central region of the image, you'd be hard-pressed to find any evidence of chromatic aberration even zoomed in to 100% on a monitor. Just excellent performance.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
There has to be a price to pay for these excellent results in sharpness and resistance to chromatic aberration, and that price is corner shading. We normally see darker corners with wide-angle lenses, and unfortunately, the 16-85mm is no exception. Used wide open and wide-angle (16mm, ƒ/3.5) you can expect the corners to be just over a full stop darker than the center of the image. Corner darkness is a mixed bag for the lens, only becoming a non-issue when the lens is used with conservative settings - the mid-range of its zoom, and when stopped down to at least ƒ/8. When used at 16mm, the best case scenario is a half-stop of corner darkness when used at ƒ/8 or smaller.

Lens design is all about managing concessions, and this would be the one. Fortunately, corner darkening is fixable in most image post-processing software.

Distortion
Wide angle lenses also have to contend with distorted results, and the 16-85mm has its share of issues with distortion. Barrel (bloat) distortion is prominent when the lens is set between 16-21mm. At a focal length greater than 21mm, distortion changes to pincushion (squeeze) style.

In either case, the distortion results are not extreme, reaching only 0.75% barrel distortion on the wide angle, and -0.5% pincushion by 24mm and greater. These results are most noticeable in the corners. It's possible to correct for this distortion in image post-processing software, however, the prominent distortion throughout the image is barrel; thus, after 21mm, the distortion profile is somewhat complex. It could be tricky to get your straight lines truly straight.

Autofocus Operation
An AF-S lens with ultrasonic motor, AF operation for the 16-85mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 is virtually silent and reasonably fast, if not lightning quick: The AF motor took right around a second to slew from closest focus to infinity. The ultrasonic motor also means you can override the AF motor at any time by just turning the focus ring, without having to switch the camera or lens to manual focus mode.

Macro
Close-focusing ability is quite good for the lens at 38cm (1' 3"). The minimum macro area width is just 114 mm (~4.5 inches) on a Nikon DX body. At minimum focus and 85mm, the front element of the lens is about 15cm (just under 6 inches) from the subject. The magnification ratio for the lens is 0.22x.

Build Quality and Handling
Being a DX lens, the 16-85mm is quite compact, balancing nicely on the smaller Nikon consumer and prosumer bodies. Zoom and focus are controlled via two rubber-ribbed rings. The rings are well-separated so there's no chance of confusing the two when working blind or looking through the viewfinder. The rubber ribs give a very good grip; there's no sense at all that your fingers could slip on the controls. Zoom action on our sample was very smooth and solid, but perhaps a little tight. As a result though, it showed no tendency to zoom creep anywhere in the focal length range. The zoom control rotates about 90 degrees (a quarter turn) in moving from shortest to longest focal length, while the focus control rotates about 130 degrees, roughly a third of a turn. We found the amount of travel on the focus adjustment enough that we had no trouble focusing manually. The front element doesn't rotate while focusing or zooming, making working with polarizers a breeze. While the 67mm filter threads are plastic, the lens mount is metal.

The lens barrel extends quite a bit in zooming from wide angle to maximum telephoto, telescoping out about 42mm. Not as much as some long-ratio zooms, but a fair bit relative to the compact dimensions of the lens when set to its widest angle. The included lens hood is of the ''petal'' design, fairly effective at wide angle, much less so at 85mm.

The Vibration Reduction employed is the newer VR2 system, first seen in the 18-200mm ƒ/3.5-5.6; Nikon claims photographers using this lens can achieve stable shots up to four stops faster than with a non-VR lens. While we haven't yet established a test protocol to assess these claims, we can say that the VR works very effectively.

The lens is equipped with a distance scale indicator, and three switches: one for activating and deactivating autofocus (''M/A M''), the next for activating and deactivating vibration reduction, and the last for setting the VR mode between normal and active. The difference between the two modes is the level of sensitivity; ''normal'' mode allows some tolerance for slow movements (ie., the VR system will not attempt to compensate for horizontal movement during a pan, only vertical). The ''active'' mode will be very sensitive to any form of camera movement.

Alternatives

Nikon 24-120mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR ~$500
The original streetsweeper with Nikon's first-generation VR system, the 24-120mm is considerably less sharp and shows significantly more chromatic aberration. However, vignetting and distortion are much better controlled, and if you're working with film or FX, it'll cover the 35mm imaging circle. Uses 72mm filters.

Nikon 18-70mm ƒ/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX ~$330
Slightly less sharp but good control of CA, vignetting and distortion, this lens is a popular kit lens in the DX class. Also takes 67mm filters.

Nikon 18-200mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX VR ~$700
There's a fair amount of controversy on the net as to whether this lens is a better value for the money. Also a VR2 lens, the 18-200mm isn't as sharp and is a little worse in the CA department; it's slightly better with vignetting, but distorts a bit more. The extra 115mm of reach is attractive, but sharpness at these focal lengths is fair to average.

Sigma 17-70mm ƒ/2.8-4.5 DC Macro ~$340
An excellent alternative with macro capability, it's slightly less sharp, and CA results are almost but not quite as good (at this level, however, we're really picking hairs). Vignetting and distortion are as can be expected for a wide angle lens. The extra half-stop of speed could be useful, but by 24mm, it's ƒ/3.5 anyway.

Tamron 28-75mm ƒ/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical IF SP AF ~$349
While not as wide-angle or telephoto, the constant ƒ/2.8 aperture of the Tamron is a compelling option in this category. The lens shows excellent results for all of sharpness, chromatic aberration, vignetting and distortion, comparable to the Nikon 16-85mm. Focus is mechanically driven though; it does sport an aperture ring, and it's also full-frame, offering full film compatibility.

Conclusion
The 16-85mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 is an admirable lens; excellent sharpness and chromatic aberration results, marred only by some distortion and vignetting issues. However, I'm happy to see Nikon engineers giving sharpness the top priority, as this is the one factor that you can't really correct for in post-processing. The lens is a definite improvement over its predecessor, the 24-120mm, a lens which provided an excellent platform for a wide range of photographic styles. With the release of the 16-85mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, the bar has been raised.

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.