• site home
  • blog home
  • galleries
  • contact
  • underwater
  • the bleeding edge

the last word

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

You are here: Home / The Last Word / 6 normal lenses on the D810 — summary

6 normal lenses on the D810 — summary

March 17, 2015 JimK Leave a Comment

This is a summary of the results of a distant-landscape test of the following lenses:

  • Nikon 60mm f/2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor
  • Nikon 58mm f/1.4 AFS-Nikkor G
  • Coastal Optical 60mm f/4 UV-Vis-IR Apo Macro
  • Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG Art (Copy 1)
  • Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG Art (Copy 2)
  • Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus

You can read about the methodology and the f/4 results here.

  • The f/1.4 pictures are here.
  • f/2 is here.
  • f/2.8 images here.
  • The f/5.6 results are here.
  • f/8? Here.
  • f/11? Not presented. Too similar.

At f/1.4, the Otus is far and away the best performer away from the center, although, in the center, the Sigmas give the Zeiss a go. The same is true to a lesser extent at f/2. At f/2.8 the Sigmas are very close to the Otus. Beyond that, you could throw a blanket over the three of them.

The Coastal Optical does fine, but it’s handicapped by the fact that it’s only an f/4 lens.

This is not a test that plays to the 58mm Nikkor’s strength, which is the rendering of out-of-focus portions of the image, but it performs credibly nonetheless.

The Micro-Nikkor is outclassed. It is an older design, and it is not operating at the distance for which it was designed. Nevertheless, its performance is not bad, just not up to the high standard of this field.

In tests that follow, I looked at out-of-focus portions of a different test image.

  • At f/1.4
  • At f/2
  • At f/2.8
  • At f/4

In this test, the 58mm Nikkor shows that it’s something special when it comes to rendering smooth, creamy bokeh. The Otus is second, with a less voluptuous treatment. The Sigma has a fiddly quality to its bokeh at the wider apertures. The other two lenses do fine, but are nothing to write home about in this context.

A few notes:

The macro capabilities of the Coastal Optical lens, together with the relatively short focus ring throw and the stiff action, make it really tough to focus accurately. It does stay put when you take your hand off, which is more than I can say for the not tested 50mm Summilux.

The D810 dramatically improved live view over the two predecessor cameras, but it’s still not quite up to the Sony alpha 7 live view. On the other hand, the D810 live view won’t turn itself off when you get your head close to the LCD screen. (That is fixed on the Sony a7RII.)

The Otus is a delight to focus. The combination of the long-throw focusing ring and the silky action is delightful.

 

The Last Word

← Normal lenses on the D810 at f/1.4 Craft versus content →

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

May 2025
S M T W T F S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Apr    

Articles

  • About
    • Patents and papers about color
    • Who am I?
  • How to…
    • Backing up photographic images
    • How to change email providers
    • How to shoot slanted edge images for me
  • Lens screening testing
    • Equipment and Software
    • Examples
      • Bad and OK 200-600 at 600
      • Excellent 180-400 zoom
      • Fair 14-30mm zoom
      • Good 100-200 mm MF zoom
      • Good 100-400 zoom
      • Good 100mm lens on P1 P45+
      • Good 120mm MF lens
      • Good 18mm FF lens
      • Good 24-105 mm FF lens
      • Good 24-70 FF zoom
      • Good 35 mm FF lens
      • Good 35-70 MF lens
      • Good 60 mm lens on IQ3-100
      • Good 63 mm MF lens
      • Good 65 mm FF lens
      • Good 85 mm FF lens
      • Good and bad 25mm FF lenses
      • Good zoom at 24 mm
      • Marginal 18mm lens
      • Marginal 35mm FF lens
      • Mildly problematic 55 mm FF lens
      • OK 16-35mm zoom
      • OK 60mm lens on P1 P45+
      • OK Sony 600mm f/4
      • Pretty good 16-35 FF zoom
      • Pretty good 90mm FF lens
      • Problematic 400 mm FF lens
      • Tilted 20 mm f/1.8 FF lens
      • Tilted 30 mm MF lens
      • Tilted 50 mm FF lens
      • Two 15mm FF lenses
    • Found a problem – now what?
    • Goals for this test
    • Minimum target distances
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Printable Siemens Star targets
    • Target size on sensor
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Test instructions — postproduction
    • Test instructions — reading the images
    • Test instructions – capture
    • Theory of the test
    • What’s wrong with conventional lens screening?
  • Previsualization heresy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Recommended photographic web sites
  • Using in-camera histograms for ETTR
    • Acknowledgments
    • Why ETTR?
    • Normal in-camera histograms
    • Image processing for in-camera histograms
    • Making the in-camera histogram closely represent the raw histogram
    • Shortcuts to UniWB
    • Preparing for monitor-based UniWB
    • A one-step UniWB procedure
    • The math behind the one-step method
    • Iteration using Newton’s Method

Category List

Recent Comments

  • JimK on How Sensor Noise Scales with Exposure Time
  • Štěpán Kaňa on Calculating reach for wildlife photography
  • Štěpán Kaňa on How Sensor Noise Scales with Exposure Time
  • JimK on Calculating reach for wildlife photography
  • Geofrey on Calculating reach for wildlife photography
  • JimK on Calculating reach for wildlife photography
  • Geofrey on Calculating reach for wildlife photography
  • Javier Sanchez on The 16-Bit Fallacy: Why More Isn’t Always Better in Medium Format Cameras
  • Mike MacDonald on Your photograph looks like a painting?
  • Mike MacDonald on Your photograph looks like a painting?

Archives

Copyright © 2025 · Daily Dish Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Unless otherwise noted, all images copyright Jim Kasson.