Lens Reviews / Nikon Lenses i Lab tested

18-55mm	$163 average price

SLRgear Review
11/12/2014
by William Brawley

The Nikon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G VR II AF-S DX, as the "II" moniker in the model name indicates, is the updated "Mark II" version of Nikon's compact wide-to-short tele DX-format kit lens. Introduced alongside the diminutive Nikon D3300, the new 18-55mm II lens is the first retractable DSLR lens from Nikon and allows it to shrink up to an even more compact size.

The new kit lens comes equipped with Nikon's latest Vibration Reduction stabilization system that aims to provide four stops of shake reduction. The lens also features Nikon's Super Integrated Coating for improved color and contrast by reducing glare and reflections, and the seven-bladed rounded aperture diaphragm allows for a nice, pleasing background blur.

The 18-55mm II isn't a "constant" lens, in that as you increase the focal length, both the maximum and minimum aperture sizes decrease. The following table reflects the change in aperture size with focal length:

Focal Length	18mm	24mm	35mm	45mm	55mm
Largest aperture	ƒ/3.5	ƒ/4	ƒ/4.5	ƒ/5.6	ƒ/5.6
Smallest aperture	ƒ/22	ƒ/25	ƒ/29	ƒ/32	ƒ/36

The Nikon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G VR II AF-S DX comes standard as the Nikon D3300 kit lens, but can be purchased separately for around $249.95.

Sharpness
Sharpness is a bit of a mixed bag with this lens. At 18mm and 55mm, the lens is nice and sharp, particularly in the centers. There's some corner softness at 18mm, but stopping down to ƒ/5.6 sharpens things up considerably, for uniform sharpness across the frame. At 55mm, even wide open at ƒ/5.6, the lens is also very sharp across the frame, though diffraction takes its toll at ƒ/22 and smaller. Other focal lengths also experience a degree of diffraction softness at the extremely small apertures, though it becomes more apparent at the longer focal lengths as the aperture stops down narrower and narrower.

However, at 35mm, things are quite strange. Wide open, at 35mm ƒ/4.5, the Nikon 18-55 II displays considerable softness for a good portion of the frame, except for a small portion toward the center where sharpness increases somewhat. Stopping down from ƒ/4.5 to ƒ/5.6 brings things back to "normal" with sharp centers and only a slight appearance of corner softness, as shown in our graphs. At ƒ/8 at this focal length, the lens once again displays very sharp images.

We, in fact, obtained three different copies of this lens to determine if the optical issue at 35mm was due to sample variation. However, this issue occurred to varying degrees on all copies, with the results on this page being the best of the three, and incidentally from the lens with the highest serial number.

Chromatic Aberration
As a budget-friendly kit zoom lens, there were bound to be some trade-offs, and one appears to be with chromatic aberration. However it's not all bad news. While the wider angles display more CA -- which is to be expected for a wide-angle lens -- when you zoom to the longer focal lengths (i.e. 35mm and longer), chromatic aberration is significantly reduced.

At 18mm @ ƒ/3.5-ƒ/4, chromatic aberration is still relatively minor, on average, however we see a steep increase in CA as you stop down to ƒ/22. We found a similar behavior with CA, though to a lesser degree, at 24mm as well. Then at 35mm, CA is reduced quite a bit, to where it hovers around a maximum of 300ths of a percent of frame height from ƒ/16 and smaller. At 45mm, we found even more improvements in CA, and finally, 55mm displayed very well controlled CA at all apertures.

Shading ("Vignetting")
As expected at the wider angles, the Nikon 18-55mm II displays some vignetting at the shorter focal lengths and wider apertures, though it exhibits better vignetting control here than the previous model of this kit lens. At 18mm ƒ/3.5, we saw just shy of 0.5EVs of light loss in the corners, which then steadily decreased to around 0.25EVs at ƒ/5.6 and dropped even further at ƒ/11 (we did see an up-tick in vignetting at ƒ/16 and ƒ/22, but only for 18mm). The other focal lengths displays much less vignetting, though they followed a similar pattern of more corner shading at the wider apertures and decreasing vignetting as you stop down. For the other focal lengths, stopping down to ƒ/8 and smaller significantly reduced the appearance of vignetting.

Distortion
Compared to its predecessor, the distortion behavior of the 18-55mm II is nearly identical. There's some obvious barrel distortion at the wider focal lengths -- a bit over 1% out in the corners and just over 0.5% on average at 18mm. Zooming to 35mm and longer, distortion is largely cleared up completely, though there is a hint of pincushion distortion at the longer focal lengths out in the corners.

Focusing Operation
Despite the use of Nikon's Silent Wave Motor autofocusing system, the new Nikon 18-55mm II autofocuses rather slowly, taking about 1.5 seconds to rack through the entire focus range. We're used to seeing modern lenses take closer to one second or sometimes even quicker. As our lens technician summarized: it does the job, just not very quickly.

While focusing, the front element does not rotate -- nor does it rotate during zooming -- so circular polarizers work just fine with this lens. The barrel of the lens does in fact extend while focusing at about a quarter of an inch.

For manual focus, there's a manual AF/MF switch on the side of the barrel, and there is no manual focus override while AF is activated. Once switched over to manual focus, there's only a thin focus ring near the front edge of the lens. It has a very light and loose rotational feel to it, which can make it easy to bump. The focus throw, or degree of rotation, is quite limited as well -- about 45 degrees with hard stops at either end -- so the lens doesn't provide very precise, fine-grained manual focus adjustments.

Macro
While this lens isn't designed for macro shooting, it provides quite decent close-focusing capabilities, which remain unchanged from the previous version: a magnification ratio of 0.31x (1:3.2), and a close-focusing range of 0.28m (11.02 inches).

Build Quality and Handling
The Nikon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G VR II AF-S DX is constructed almost entirely from strong plastic with Nikon's typical lightly-speckled matte black finish. The lens mount itself is also plastic. The all-plastic construction makes this lens very lightweight and easy to handle -- a perfect match for the small, lightweight D3300 it comes paired with. It's very easy to carry around all day, and the versatile 18-55mm zoom range makes it an all-around convenient general-purpose lens.

While some may read "plastic" and think "cheap," the Nikon 18-55mm II actually feels well constructed and sturdy in the hand, especially for a kit lens. While it doesn't feel nearly as solid as some of Nikon's higher-end metal-constructed lenses, the 18-55 II feels light and durable. Nonetheless, it most likely won't take the "abuse" that the higher end Nikkors can endure, including inclement weather and harsh environments, as this lens is not weather-sealed.

The wide zoom ring doubles as the locking collapsible mechanism. Simply rotate the lens past the 18mm mark, and the lens begins to retract down and locks into place. There is a button on the left side of the lens, which much be pressed to release and extend the barrel prior to shooting.

The zoom ring itself feels smooth to rotate, but not as smooth as on higher-end lenses. Nevertheless, the ring is still easy to rotate with two fingers and the deeply ribbed rubberized texture provides an easy grip. The lens doesn't extend very much when zooming -- only about half an inch -- and the barrel and lens elements are lightweight, and combined with the slight stiff/friction-y feel of the zoom ring, lens creep is not an issue for this lens.

Other exterior design features are rather sparse for this lens. Apart from the barrel lock button, the only other exterior feature is the AF/MF toggle switch. Focal lengths are also marked, but there's no focus distance scale.

On the interior, the Nikon 18-55mm II is comprised of 11 elements in 8 groups, including one aspheric element. The aperture diaphragm is rounded with a 7-bladed design, which makes for smooth and pleasing background blur.

The kit lens also features Nikon's latest version of their Vibration Reduction image stabilization system, and based on our tests, it works very well. Click over to the IS Test tab at the beginning of this review to see the test results.

Alternatives
The most suitable alternative to this kit zoom is its predecessor, the Nikon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G VR DX AF-S. On many counts, the optical performance of this lens is very similar to the new second-generation lens, other than the issue we found on the newer model at 35mm when wide open. The new version does display sharper images overall and vignetting is pronounced, however CA was measured slightly stronger on this new version while distortion looks practically identical. The old version also has a price advantage over the new model at around $196.95.

Nikon also makes an even older model 18-55mm DX kit lens, the Nikon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G ED II DX AF-S. And while we haven't tested this lens, it's one big disadvantage over the new "II" model, is the lack of image stabilization altogether. However, it's even more affordable at around $119.95.

Besides older-model Sigma or Tamron lenses, compact, variable-aperture wide to short-tele zooms do not have much competition apart from the "standard-issue" 18-55mm kit lenses from the camera manufacturers themselves.

Conclusion
Apart from the odd image softness we experienced shooting wide-open at 35mm, the Nikon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G VR II AF-S DX is a sharp lens at other focal lengths, even wide open. The newer Vibration Reduction is a solid performer and a great feature to have. While there is some vignetting and distortion, particularly at the wider focal lengths, as well as some CA, these characteristics can be minimized with photo editing software very easily. All in all, with a versatile focal length range, great sharpness for the most part, and a nice compact design, the new Nikon 18-55mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G VR II AF-S DX is a good starting point lens for entry-level photographers just jumping into the world of DSLRs.

Product Photos

Sample Photos

Click here for Real-world Gallery Images on our Flickr page!

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.