Careful not to fall below 1/1,000sec so
I could freeze the action and capture a
crisp white ball, I started the evening shooting
at 1/2,000sec at f/5.6, ISO 400, which within
the space of three hours changed to 1/800sec
at f/5.6, ISO 2000. Swapping lenses with Matt
to get his thoughts on the lens confi rmed what
I initially thought. It’s best suited to situations
where there’s plenty of ambient light. Thanks
to the fl oodlights and superb performance at
high ISO on the D850, I was managing to get
pleasing results under testing conditions. As
Matt pointed out though, using the lens in dark
winter months to shoot football or rugby, or at
a stadium where the fl oodlights aren’t as bright
would ask much more of the camera’s sensor
at high ISO and be a different test entirely.
Another thing that blew me away was the
blisteringly fast focusing performance. A press
of one of the four function buttons with the
focus function selector set to AF-ON fi nds
focus immediately. Autofocus speed on moving
subjects with the AF mode set to continuous
is incredibly brisk. It held focus well during
a ten-frame burst and there was no obvious
difference in focus speed between it and Matt’s
AF-S 600mm f/4 E FL ED VR. Using the
memory recall function requires the beep on/
off switch to be enabled and the focus mode
switch to be set to its central memory recall
setting. Saving a focus distance is as simple as
pressing the memory set button, however its
positioning could be better on the barrel by
allowing it to be pressed using your left hand
supporting the lens. When a beep sounds it
means the focus distance has been saved.
Having the option to set the same focus
distance as a previous shot from a press of
a button, regardless the position of the focus
mode switch, is great to have for sports and
wildlife photography where there’s a chance a
subject might return to the same spot time and
time again. Resting the lens nose down on the
hood between spells of shooting did highlight
one fl aw in the design. Unlike Nikon’s 500mm
f/4 and 600mm f/4 primes that are supplied
with carbon fi bre lens hoods, the plastic one
you get is more vulnerable to damage. One
area in particular is prone to getting cracked,
just as it was on my sample when it arrived. I’d
like to see Nikon design a carbon fi bre hood
as an optional accessory for the lens.Image quality
There’s only so much you can tell by glancing
at a camera’s screen when it comes to
analysing optical quality, so between innings
I rushed to the media centre to download my
shots and take a closer look. The maximum
aperture of f/5.6 might not be fast, but the
fall-off in focus between players and spectators
behind them at such a long focal length creates
a highly satisfying depth to images that shouts
that they were taken with a specialist lens. One
of the known issues of using a Phase Fresnel
(PF) element in the construction is that it can
be susceptible to producing colourful ring-
shaped fl are. The good news is that I noticed
no such issue in any of my shots during testing
and there’s always PF Flare control to fall back
on in Nikon’s Capture NX-D software should
it be needed. The lens controls chromatic
aberrations exceptionally well and although it
does show signs of vignetting at f/5.6, it’s not
overly offensive and is quick to disappear as
you stop down. Sharpness is the lens’s key
strength. It’s insanely sharp in the centre at
f/5.6. Edge sharpness improves by stoppingdown to around f/8, with diffraction starting
to take the edge off sharpness at f/16 and
beyond. You’d expect an extremely impressive
image quality performance for the price and
that’s precisely what you get.Final thoughts
The headline to this review sums up this lens
perfectly; it’s a sublime super-telephoto prime
that delivers the level of image quality andTestbench IN THE FIELD
The focusing speed of the lens is
extremely impressive. It locked
onto Steven Finn in an instant and
held focus well during a burst at 7fps
Nikon D850, 1/2000sec at f/5.6, ISO 1000