Two generations of 300mm fixed focus are winning glory.
Speaking of Nikon's 300 mm fixed focus, we have to mention the grievances between Nikon and Canon in the past few decades. Since the 1960s, the global glasses industry has entered an extremely prosperous period. Both Japanese and German departments have started decades-long technological competition. With the advent of the digital age, Minolta and many other superstars have already withdrawn from the competition, leaving only a few veteran players represented by Nikon and Canon in Japan.
Nikon has always had the upper hand in wide-angle research and development because of its mature use of double-reverse structure, but it has never been able to catch up with Canon in focusing performance and anti-shake performance. Therefore, Nikon has always been at a disadvantage in telephoto lenses, especially the autofocus telephoto lenses in the 1980 s and 1990 s. The 300mm fixed focus is the D head released by Nikon in 2000. At that time, it was quickly accepted by many users with excellent image quality and precise focus, and became the classic glory of a generation of lenses. However, the old 300mm fixed focus has outstanding advantages and obvious disadvantages. There is no anti-shake, the focus is bellows, and the dust is serious, which has become a pain in the hearts of many users. Stepping into a new era, in the long-awaited call, the new 300mm has lived up to expectations and returned strongly.
Nikon AF-SNIKKOR300mmf/4EPFEDVR lens parameters:
Lens structure: 10 group 16 pieces (1 ED with brand-new FP lens, nanocrystalline coating).
Focal length: 300mm
Lens aperture: F4 F32
Aperture blades: 9 pieces
Anti-shake: 4.5-speed anti-shake effect
Recent attention: 1.4m
Weight: 755g
Filter size: 77 mm
This time, the release of 300mmf/4 new products can be said to be very rapid. From the appearance of rumors to the release of the lens, the parameters of the new lens are also very exaggerated. Less than 15 cm in length and 755g in weight, it is hard to believe that this is a 300 mm full-frame fixed-focus lens with all modern features. The realization of this technology is very difficult, and the most important contribution is attributed to this PF lens, that is, the Fresnel phase lens. Let's see why this AF-SNIKKOR300mmf/4EPFEDVR lens is so amazing.
The size and weight of PF lens are reduced by 30%.
First, we need to look at the PF lens. Nikon AF-S300mmf/4EPFEDVR lens is Nikon's first lens with Fresnel phase lens. Compared with AF-S 300 MMF/4IF-ED, the weight of the lens is reduced by about 545g, the total length is reduced by about 75mm (the length from the camera lens mount), and the maximum diameter is reduced by about1mm. ..
What is a PF lens? The PF (Fresnel Phase) lens developed by Nikon is a special lens, which can effectively compensate chromatic aberration through light diffraction. When combined with standard glass lenses, it can provide excellent color difference compensation performance. Compared with the general lens optical system, PF lens can reduce the number of lenses, thus making the lenses significantly smaller and lighter.
Why can this lens reduce its size and weight? The reason is that this kind of lens itself can play a very good role in chromatic aberration correction, which can save many complicated optical lens groups, so it can greatly reduce the volume and weight of the lens. The reason why PF lens itself can eliminate chromatic aberration lies in its uneven lens design, which can change the focus of light with different wavelengths in reverse, thus replacing the original multi-lens and multi-group optical correction with one lens. Different from the previous HRI, that is, high-power lens, PF lens reduces the lens volume not by using a single lens to improve the optical quality, but by replacing the original complex lens group with a single lens, so the volume and weight are reduced more obviously and the image quality will not be affected.
It is worth noting that the fundamental principle of this kind of lens is the diffraction of light, so when the light is direct, this kind of lens may produce annular color glare. In order to eliminate this drawback, Nikon added the PF lens glare control function to the latest version of image processing software.
If PF lens can be used for large lens, its volume and weight will be greatly reduced.
The real industrial application of PF lens can be said to be a new attempt. If this new 300 mm fixed-focus lens can be successful, it will be widely used in larger telephoto lenses in the future, which is a very remarkable thing. We can imagine that if this technology is applied to 600mmf/4, 800mmf/5.6 and other lenses, the length can be reduced by tens of centimeters and the weight can be reduced by more than 2KG, which is a leap forward for telephoto lenses.
Electromagnetic aperture will be fully popularized in e era.
Perhaps careful friends will find that another very bright spot of this lens is that the lens of this lens is marked with not G head, but E head! Nikon has evolved from D-head to G-head for many years, but it has only been two years since it entered E-head. At present, Nikon only has three shift lenses and 800mmf/5.6 adopts electromagnetic aperture, and this 300mmf/4 fixed focus is the first electromagnetic aperture head that is close to the people, which also indicates that Nikon is about to enter the era of E-head.
For electromagnetic aperture, other users may not feel strange, but for Nikon users, it is very rare. Nikon retains most of the design of the original bayonet, which makes Nikon lens universal on all cameras from the AI port without any problems, but the sensitivity and reaction speed of the mechanical aperture rod are definitely not as good as that of the electromagnetic aperture, so this has become a heart disease for Nikon users.
Nikon's new 300mmf/4 is equipped with an aperture blade device with a driving mechanism in the lens barrel, which can control the aperture through the electrical signal from the camera body. After using the electromagnetic aperture, the device can ensure stable automatic exposure control even at high-speed continuous shooting.
The aperture ring has been cancelled from the D head to the G head, and this time Nikon will fully realize the electronic lens.
Another advantage of using electromagnetic aperture is that the aperture position is no longer limited by mechanical structure, which makes the aperture not only at the end of the lens, but also more flexible in lens design. What's the good of this? The most direct effect is that the lens design does not need to consider the aperture problem, which can greatly reduce the lens volume and reduce the influence of aperture on the focusing lens group.
After entering the E-era, cameras before D2 will not be able to use the E-head.
In fact, the author is not surprised that Nikon lens entered the era of E-head, which is the result of the progress of the times. But this 300 mm fixed focus has conveyed a clear message to us, that is, the popularization of E-head is coming soon. Before, whether it was shifting the axis or fixing the focus to 800 mm, it was a professional lens, not a common lens in daily life, and 300mmf/4 was very close to life. So this lens can be regarded as the beginning of Nikon lens entering the e era. However, after Nikon used the electromagnetic aperture, it can only use models above D2, and the older generation of digital SLR and film machines can't use this lens.
Super anti-shake completely get rid of the pain in my heart
Speaking of the previous generation Nikon 300mmf/4D, the most painful thing in everyone's heart is that there is no anti-shake. For a 300 mm lens, no anti-shake means that every trip must be accompanied by a tripod or a monopod. In 2000, Nikon VR anti-shake was just a prototype, and it did not start to be widely used. Even the first generation VR lens in the next few years had only two or three anti-shake effects. However, after Nikon's efforts for more than ten years, VR anti-shake is now quite powerful. The new 70-200mmf/4 (small bamboo cannon) and the new 80-400mm have proved that Nikon's VR anti-shake is excellent.
According to official data from Nikon, the anti-shake performance of the new 300mmf/4E can reach 4.5, which means that the new lens can at least guarantee the shooting clarity under the shutter of115s. In addition, this lens is very light, so that we are not limited by the load of equipment when shooting, and this head has also become a good helper for people to conquer nature.
Speaking of anti-shake performance, the anti-shake performance of new lenses has been good in recent years, so how does Nikon stand out in front of so many new technologies? The answer is simple, the lens is lighter! For telephoto lenses, the hand-held burden has always been the biggest test of long-term shooting, but for this new 300 mm fixed focus, there is basically no shooting burden, which is not even as heavy as an APS-C large aperture lens, let alone other telephoto guns. So when shooting with this lens, our hands will be more stable, and we don't have to worry about hand shaking caused by long-term shooting.
Super protective fluorine coating and sealing design
Another feature of this lens comes from its excellent protective performance. Recently, Nikon began to implement fluorine coating technology, which can make the first lens of the lens have strong stain resistance, so that users can still shoot for a long time in harsh environments without worrying about the troubles caused by the dirty lens.
At present, Nikon has applied for a patent for a large wave of coated lenses. In the future, we can see that Nikon will vigorously popularize this technology in the telephoto lens group, and it is not surprising that 300mmf/4 will join this coating technology. Corresponding to this technology, we can see very comprehensive protection measures on this lens, including tight sealing apron and all-weather dustproof and waterproof shell.
Why does Nikon attach so much importance to the protective performance of this lens? The reasons are all on the previous generation 300mmf/4 lens. If you search Baidu, you will find that the previous generation Nikon 300mmf/4 has a serious negative pressure phenomenon in order to seek faster focusing and better image quality. The rapid focus change makes the rearview mirror form a set of vacuum cleaners, so the problem of dust entering has plagued Nikon users for more than ten years. It is very rare for Nikon to face up to this problem, which also makes the author look forward to the specific performance of this new lens.
Finally, talk about other aspects of this shot. The actual focal length of this lens is 300mm, and the maximum aperture is F4, so lens blur is naturally not a problem. In addition, regarding the focusing speed, the previous generation of 300mmf/4 focusing can be said to be the representative of Nikon D-head. Although there is some noise, it is still relatively fast, but the bellows phenomenon is unacceptable to some users. Nikon's lens motor has got rid of this problem, and I believe that the new 300mm fixed focus will have better performance.
At present, I am most concerned about the imaging quality of this lens, especially on the ultra-high pixel computer like Nikon D8 10. Can the new optical design have such a small lens? This is very worthy of our expectation.
At the end of the article, let's take a look at the official sample of the lens. This lens can also be said to be an all-around lens, which is very suitable for scenery shooting and sports photography. Let's look at the actual shooting performance of the lens from the official proofs.
This lens has been officially released, but the domestic release date and price are still unknown. The official price is currently 12400 RMB, which is really not cheap. But besides this head, which 300mm fixed focus can achieve a length of less than 15cm and a weight of 755g? Therefore, the price is measured by quality. If the quality of this lens is excellent enough, it is destined to become a classic and legend of this generation of lenses.
The above is an introduction about the performance improvement of Nikon's new 300mm lens. I hope it helps you!