Catching up
First, a hearty thank you to everyone who contacted me recently with comments and questions regarding my Long-Lens Landscapes article in Outdoor Photographer Magazine. I’ve been traveling for the past couple of weeks and have not had much time to catch up on email. I’m about to board my last flight home this morning, and will make every effort to respond in the next few days.
Guy
Category: Announcements
I take it you made it back OK (?) I’ve been thinking about your “Long Lens Landscapes” article in connection with the new Nikon FX format and the demands it makes of traditional ‘full-frame’ lenses like the venerable 70-200/2.8 VR. Vignetting can be corrected but the edge softness is something to carefully consider when using it as a landscape lens. (Not an issue in most common ‘telephoto’ uses.)
John, stopping down increases the usable size of the image circle (i.e. reduces light falloff and vignetting) and may help with this particular lens. Though one should be careful not to go too far on the aperture scale where diffraction may become a problem.
If you’re seeing vignetting with a lens designed to cover a given format, it’s sad to say but you should complain to the manufacturer who didn’t design it to produce a large enough image circle. I used the older 80-200/2.8 Nikon models, as well as the Canon 70-200/2.8 and 70-200/4 which do not exhibit this problem.
Guy