Buy Nikon 18 140mm Lens

Nikon offers the DX crop mode on FX cameras more as a trick to get people to buy Nikon FX cameras, thinking that they'll be able to use their existing DX lenses. When people do, they quickly discover that the crop mode is a crock, and wind up buying all new FX lenses anyway. Nikon does this to make it seem like it's less expensive to stay with Nikon than to change to Canon when stepping-up to full-frame, and this trick works for Nikon.

buy nikon 18 140mm lens

Coma (saggital coma flare) often causes weird smeared blobs to appear around bright points of light in the corners of fast or wide lenses at large apertures. In lenses that have it, coma goes away as stopped down.

If you compare this lens to a fixed 135mm lens, it looks about the same at infinity, and at six feet (2 meters), this lens includes about 20% more in each direction than the 135mm lens. This difference becomes greater at closer distances.

This is good: this is an artifact of an optical trick Nikon plays to get closer focusing. If they didn't, a regular 135mm lens only focuses to 1.3 meters, while this lens focuses about ten times closer! Losing maximum magnification at close distances in exchange for closer focusing is a very good trade to make.

Also I am hard pressed to believe that any manufacturer has a separate lens manufacturing protocol for its native lenses- it would be too expensive- some are faster some are slower but Ill bet the formula for the glass is the same>

On paper it does have such a convenient range of focal lengths, but the 18-140mm remains as the most unreliable & optically least capable lens in my collection. (vs 35mm DX, 18-55mm AF-P, 50mm f/1.8 AF-D ).

I should mention that, apart from the good sample of this lens, the D7100 it came on (which is now mine) appears to be dead-nuts accurate in focus, and a camera that is not may cause woes that I have not experienced.

This my first digital camera. The Nikon d7200 and the 18-140 lens are amazing. I covered my girl friends 70th birthday party, I took great pictures in various modes just like the pros. I love my camera and this great 18-140 lens.

The Nikon 18-140mm VR lens has a limited feature set including an internal focus (IF) mechanism, a quiet focus motor, an auto/manual focus switch and Nikon's Vibration Reduction (VR) image stabilisation system. There is no distance scale, focus limiter or depth-of-field scale, however, and you do not get to choose between Active and Normal VR modes, either. Being a G series lens, the Nikkor 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR also lacks an aperture ring.

With the lens attached to a D7100, auto-focus is surprisingly fast. While not quite in the same league as the pro zooms (e.g. the AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 or 70-200mm f/2.8), it's definitely capable of keeping quickly and erratically moving subjects in focus. If you thought this was a natural consequence of being an AF-S lens, think again! The AF-S designation, in and of itself, is no guarantee of fast focussing, as we saw when reviewing the 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DX telezoom. The fact that it worked so well in the case of the DX 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR was thus a very pleasant surprise. (Focusing in Live View or video mode is a completely different story of course.) Thankfully the filter thread does not rotate on focus, making it that much easier to use graduated neutral density filters and polarisers. The lens takes 67mm filters.

Manual focusing is also possible via the smooth but somewhat narrow focus ring located close to the lens mount. For an AF lens, the focus ring has a fairly generous amount of travel, which makes it easier to set focus precisely.

Lateral chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or blue fringes in the peripheral areas of the image, are very well controlled with this lens. The 100% crops below give you an idea of what you should expect in the worst case.

This is not a macro lens. The maximum reproduction ratio of the Nikon 18-140mm VR is approximately 1:4.4, which means that you can fill the frame with a subject that measures around 100x67mm. Sharpness in the close-up range isn't stellar but distortions are negligible if shooting at the 140mm end. The following image illustrates how close you can get to the subject; in this case, a Compact Flash card.

The Nikon 18-140mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 is Nikon's latest ''kit'' lens, sold optionally with the D5XXX and D7XXX series of digital SLR camera. The lens is designed to fit a camera with an APS-C (''subframe'') sensor, so while it will mount on Nikon film or FX digital bodies, it will show obvious vignetting when set to any focal length. The lens appears to replace the older 18-135mm lens, which did not come equipped with VR image stabilization.

Small and light, the 18-140mm represents a field of view of approximately 27-210mm in 35mm terms. To economize and create a more efficient design, the lens is equipped with a variable aperture; as the zoom extends the focal length, both the largest and smallest apertures change. The following chart represents the largest and smallest apertures you can expect at a given focal length:

The lens is equipped with Nikon's vibration reduction (VR) technology, advertising a hand-holding improvement of up to three stops. The lens does not ship with the compatible HB-32 petal-shaped hood, takes 67mm filters, and is available at a MSRP of $600.

Perhaps the best word to describe the sharpness profile of the 18-140mm is 'consistent'. With most zoom lenses, especially in the ''kit'' category, the designer must juggle a variety of factors, not the least of which is the cost of the design. Frequently a lens will be a good wide-angle performer, only to suffer when used at full telephoto; or, vice versa. This is not the case with the 18-140mm, which shows excellent performance at all focal lengths.

The 18-140mm is sharp wide open at all focal lengths, with a small amount of corner softness; typically, there is a large region of central sharpness (the ''sweet spot'') , and corners soften very slightly. Stopping down by just one aperture setting improves this performance; best results are obtained in the 35-50mm range, where corner softness is minimal. By ƒ/11, the lens reaches its optimal performance at all focal lengths, though for the mid-range (again, 35-50mm) the differences between ƒ/8 and ƒ/11 are negligible.

If there's a weakness in the lens at all, it would be performance at 140mm, where image sharpness doesn't quite reach the level seen at other focal lengths. However you'd be hard-pressed to see the quality difference in practical use.

Performance with the lens fully stopped-down isn't as good, but this is to be expected. If you need to stop down the lens, keeping it at the ƒ/22 will give you very good results. The lens is capable of stopping down further, between ƒ/25 and ƒ/36 (depending on the focal length), but at these apertures diffraction takes quite a toll on image sharpness.

Shading (''Vignetting'')The Nikon 18-140mm exhibits a fair amount of corner shading when the lens is used wide open or at wider apertures; in the worst example, 18mm at ƒ/3.5, the very corners of the image are 3/4 EV darker than the center of the image. This shading decreases as the lens is stopped down, but only really goes away if you stop down to the ƒ/8 or ƒ/11 aperture (or smaller).

DistortionDistortion has always been a feature of Nikon's consumer-level zoom lenses, and the 18-140mm has not improved in this regard. There is no focal length setting where the lens has been optimized to produce a distortion-free image. The distortion profile for the lens varies widely with the focal length being used.

Autofocus OperationAs an AF-S lens, autofocus operation is quick and virtually silent. The 18-140mm will work on all Nikon camera bodies that support SWM (silent wave motor) lenses. Autofocus results can be overridden at any time by simply turning the focus ring.

MacroThe 18-140mm isn't designed for macro work, but is holds its own with a respectable 1:4.3 reproduction ratio (0.23x magnification). Minimum close-focusing range is 45cm (almost one and a half feet) from the image sensor; from the end of the lens, you're looking at about 28cm (11 inches).

Build Quality and HandlingThe 18-140mm is a solid lens, composed of polycarbonate plastic with a textured black matte finish. Compared to the 18-135mm, it's just slightly longer and wider, and 35 grams heavier (420g), no doubt to accommodate the VR system. It uses the same 67mm filters, which don't rotate during focus or zoom operation. The lens doesn't have the fit and finish of previous kit lenses; there is no distance scale, and consequently no depth-of-field markings. Focal lengths are marked on the lens near the zoom ring, but that's about it. Two control switches are available on the lens' left side: one which enables or disables autofocus (A or M) and one which enables or disables vibration reduction (ON or OFF).

The zoom ring is the major feature of the lens, mounted forward of the focus ring. It's over 1 3/4 inches wide and is composed of a thick ribbed rubber texture which is very easy to grip. The zoom action of the lens is not internal, so the lens will extend almost 2 extra inches at the 140mm end. The zoom ring travels roughly 90 degrees in its range. There is a nice resistance in the zoom action, such that I doubt zoom creep will be a problem with this lens.

The focus ring of the lens significantly smaller than the zoom ring, only 3/8 of an inch in width. It's made of plastic, and does have a nice texture with raised ridges, and the difference in sizes means you won't accidentally turn the wrong ring (provided you remember which ring does what).

For a lens hood, Nikon offers as an optional accessory the HB-32 hood, a plastic, petal-shaped lens hood that attaches via a bayonet mount and can be reversed for storage. The lens isn't flocked on the inside but does a decent job shielding the front element from sun coming in at oblique angles. The lens hood adds an additional 1.25 inches to the overall length of the lens, and will run you around $13. 041b061a72