Strange distortion/blur when using Nikon 16-35mm f/4???

[Madison Etherington]

Hey guys,

I recently bought a Nikon 16-35mm f/4 for a month long trip I was taking this past summer. I loved the lens and thought I got some of my best pictures with it. Unfortunately I got home and began looking through the photos on my computer, and found this strange looking, almost motion-blur effect going on. It's most visible when I was shooting at f/4, but even then I was shooting at high shutter speeds so it shouldn't be a problem.
I bought the lens because it was called the "sharpest ultra-wide zoom" available, but was very disappointed to have this issue.
I contacted Nikon and they wanted me to send the lens in for servicing to attempt to fix the issue. They wound up sending it back, but updating the firmware and charging me upwards of $200 to tell me they "couldn't recreate the issue".

I took the risk of buying this lens off of ebay, and am wondering if I should just buy a new one directly from Nikon.
I really love the lens and I am totally willing to buy a new one if the issue is something within the lens that cannot be fixed if it "cannot be recreated". I'm going to attach some screenshots of the magnified view of some of the pictures, as well as the jpeg versions of the full images. To clarify, I normally shoot in RAW, and since I was viewing them in Lightroom, you can see the shutter speed in the upper left corner of the screenshots to reference.

Are there any ideas on what this could possibly be?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[I shoot with a Nikon D610 bought brand new from Best Buy last Christmas, and I do not see this issue when using the camera with any other lenses.]

Screenshots:

The effect is obvious when you magnify the images, but when viewing the full image, it is unnoticeable. Generally I wouldn't think of this as an issue, but if I decide to print some of the images I take with that lens, it would be virtually impossible because that effect is so horrendous.

Full Images:

 

[tirediron]

That's very odd; I have the same lens and it's tack-sharp. Based on the settings posted, there's definitely something wrong. Are you 100% certain you were getting a focus indication when you pressed the shutter?

 

[Madison Etherington]

That's very odd; I have the same lens and it's tack-sharp. Based on the settings posted, there's definitely something wrong. Are you 100% certain you were getting a focus indication when you pressed the shutter?

I am definitely 100% sure. I actually took multiple shots of the same subjects just to be sure and I was still getting the same effect.
You would think that even if my focus was a bit off, some part of the image would be in focus, considering I was shooting landscapes, but it wasn't. The effect is over the entire image.
Those images were shot on different days in different conditions as well, so it wasn't just on one particular day.

 

[480sparky]

Given they're all taken pretty much with the lens wide open, is there any reason such high shutter speeds were used?

Try dropping the aperture down to f/8 or so. You should still be able to hand-hold those focal lengths at shutter speeds of 1/250 and 1/125.

 

[D-B-J]

That is quite strange too. I also have this lens and it's incredibly sharp... Maybe you have a bad copy?

 

[Braineack]

is there a filter on the lens?

 

[D-B-J]

Given they're all taken pretty much with the lens wide open, is there any reason such high shutter speeds were used?

Try dropping the aperture down to f/8 or so. You should still be able to hand-hold those focal lengths at shutter speeds of 1/250 and 1/125.

I've hand held it at 1/20th for sharp photos before. So 1/125 is definitely possible!

 

[D-B-J]

In the first and second images the focus is clearly on the background. Couple that with an f4 aperture, and it seems to me like a case of missed focus..

 

[Madison Etherington]

Given they're all taken pretty much with the lens wide open, is there any reason such high shutter speeds were used?

Try dropping the aperture down to f/8 or so. You should still be able to hand-hold those focal lengths at shutter speeds of 1/250 and 1/125.

Later in the trip I did just that, but these were the first few days, and I was shooting in Aperture-Priority mode, and kept the lens wide open and the camera set the shutter speed. Later I changed and was shooting in manual to try and get rid of the effect as much as I could.
I realize that the effect is less obvious when shooting at f/8-f/11 but if this is an issue that makes me unable to shoot at f/4 with this lens, the so-called "sharpest ultra-wide zoom", having spent $1,200 on the lens itself and then $200+ on whatever Nikon did to it, I would like to get one that does not malfunction this way.

 

[480sparky]

All lenses exihibit this behavior. They're softest wide-open, improve as you start to stop down, then sharpness drops off a bit as you stop down to minimum due to diffraction.

 

[Madison Etherington]

In the first and second images the focus is clearly on the background. Couple that with an f4 aperture, and it seems to me like a case of missed focus..

Here are three more screenshots of the same image that is posted second in the original post.
I understand that it was focused in the background, but the blur effect is visible in the background as well.

 

[Madison Etherington]

All lenses exihibit this behavior. They're softest wide-open, improve as you start to stop down, then sharpness drops off a bit as you stop down to minimum due to diffraction.

I've looked at sample images from this lens at 16mm wide open and haven't seen this same blur/ghosting effect, which is why I'm puzzled.

 

[D-B-J]

f4, relatively sharp (but not mind blowing)
Losing Light by f_one_eight, on Flickr

f22, incredibly sharp
Falling Down by f_one_eight, on Flickr

All with the same lens. No lens (especially wide angles) will be incredibly sharp wide open from distances like that.

Jake

 

[Madison Etherington]

That is quite strange too. I also have this lens and it's incredibly sharp... Maybe you have a bad copy?

That's what I'm wondering.
I love the lens and I am totally willing to purchase a new copy if that is the issue.
Do you have any images shot at 16mm wide-open that I could see as a comparison?

is there a filter on the lens?

In the images included, only a UV filter.

 

[480sparky]

All lenses exihibit this behavior. They're softest wide-open, improve as you start to stop down, then sharpness drops off a bit as you stop down to minimum due to diffraction.

I've looked at sample images from this lens at 16mm wide open and haven't seen this same blur/ghosting effect, which is why I'm puzzled.

But at what apertures where the samples taken at? This lens is most likely sharpest at f/8 - f/11. If the samples you viewed were taken in that range, you're comparing apples to oranges.

Also, take the filter off and see what happens.