200-500mm f5.6 owners: Test Request !

Solarflare

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From Thom Hogans website:
Need some crowd-sourcing help. If you own the new Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 lens, please perform the following test at 200mm and then at 500mm: set your camera to aperture priority mode and shoot a properly exposed image at f/5.6, then adjust your aperture to f/11 and shoot another image. Are both the same final exposure, or is one different than the other? I’d be particularly interested in D600, D610, D7000, and D7100 owners performing this test, but I want everyone how has the lens to do it and report the results back to me.
Whow ! If there is indeed actually another issue, then thats another bad sign for Nikons level of quality assurance.
 
Well thats why he's asking, he wants to know if its just a bad copy or a general issue.

QA exists exactly to detect and sort out these bad copies.
 
I've only ever bought two Nikon products (D810 & 14-24mm). Both have been faulty. Yet my Tamron and Sigma products are perfect. So much for the much lauded OEM quality people pay a premium for.

I was thinking about getting this lens. Looks like the Sigma Sports might be a better option.
 
what went wrong with your 14-24?

Poor coatings basically. Really terrible flare and ghost resistance. Superb during the day, but I love to do night landscape with starbursts so this lens just didn't work for me because on top of the flaring the starburst are awfully ugly.

This was my torture test...
Nikon

Bad Flare Example
by Crew One Photography, on Flickr

Tamron

Flare and Ghost Test
by Crew One Photography, on Flickr

The keystoning in the Nikon version is not the lens, that was my fault as I had the camera slightly facing upwards. There is very little distortion on that lens, nor the Tamron. I tried to reproduce these images as best I could even though they were taken months apart from each other. Friends have also reproduced the shot with their 14-24mm as I was very vocal in my poor opinion of such an expensive lens. Theirs was much better which proves to me my copy was defective. But I still prefer the Tamron over their shots. Additionally I prefer the ergonomics of it over the Nikon (I also feel the same way about 24-70 and 70-200 though).

I bought the 14-24mm grey market from Hong Kong so it was easier to just sell it to someone who had no plans to use it in the same way I wanted to. So I sold it for $20 less than what I'd bought it for, pocketed some change and bought the Tamron locally and couldn't be happier.
 
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I thought about putting the Nikon 200-500 on my wish list but after reading reviews of it I figured I wouldn't gain anything (or enough) from my Tamron 150-600 except for lighter and more compact, and I'd loose 100mm. And going up to the Tamron from a Sigma 150-500 I liked the extra reach of the Tamron.
 
Just to finalize the thread: From Thom Hogans website:
Crowd-sourced 200-500mm data. Thanks for the hundreds of reports. While there were three strange results in the bunch, I’ve concluded that there is no issue with the lens.
 

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