D500 VR Lens compatibility, Fog per Manual

[Nick Scavone]

I've placed my order for a D500 (early Christmas gift for myself), and downloaded the manual. Page 326 states:

"The lenses listed below are not recommended for long exposures or photographs taken at high ISO sensitivities, as due to the design of the vibration reduction (VR) control system the resulting photos may be marred by fog. We recommend turning vibration reduction off when using other VR lenses."

Lenses listed include many modern lenses including • AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70–200mm f/2.8G IF-ED • AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70–300mm f/4.5–5.6G IF-ED • AF-S VR Nikkor 200mm f/2G IF-ED • AF-S VR Nikkor 300mm f/2.8G IF-ED • AF-S NIKKOR 16–35mm f/4G ED VR • AF-S NIKKOR 24–120mm f/4G ED VR • AF-S NIKKOR 28–300mm f/3.5–5.6G ED VR • AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8G ED VR • AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/4G ED VR

Apparently there are similar compatibility issues with the D5 (similar language in that manual). I planned to use the camera with my 70-200 g and my 400 2.8 g for sports in low light. The manual suggests that the lenses should be avoided altogether (not just turn off VR). Last sentence indicates VR should be turned off using OTHER vr lenses.

Does anyone have any experience with the d500 and these lenses at high ISOs? Any thought on how problematic this might be?

Thanks.

Nick

[tommiejeep]

Interesting Nick,  I did not read that part of the manual but bought the D500 primarily for birds and Sport.  I do not shoot long exposures.  The 70-200 f2.8vr II was the third lens I put on my new D500 .  I was super happy that the lens does not appear to need any fine tuning but was shooting a Banana Plant with lots of light ( too much actually) .  My 300 2.8 vr I does appear to need some fine tune.  I have not used vr on either yet.  I plan to use the 300 2.8 on the D500 and the 70-200 0n the D3S for Soccer.  I roam the sidelines with the two camera set up.

It will be interesting to see what others have to say.  There are many here who have been shooting the D500 much longer than I have (I've had it for about a week) and are much more proficient/experienced than I am.
Cheers,
Tom

[Frank Fremerey]

I use the D500 since May but did not use any of these lenses.

Only VR I own is the 300PF

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The normal over-cautious attitude from Nikon's side, presumably.

Anyway, using VR on lenses for long exposures is counter-indicated if the lens is tripod-mounted, so perhaps this issue is more  theoretical than of practical importance. Haven't seen any "fog" with my D500 so far. But this doesn't entail it is non-existing.

[Akira]

Apparently the VR system in all the listed lenses are of the earlier design.  I wonder why the problem emerges at higher ISO settings?

[Bjørn Rørslett]

No idea. However, this assertion is  a testable hypothesis. Away from home now and no VR lenses with me, so I'll conduct experiments early next week.

[Nick Scavone]

Thanks all. Surprising to see so many recent lenses on the list (and I only cited some of them from the manual). Yes it is the high ISO shooting I am concerned about. Even with VR off Nikon says the lenses should not be used. No indication of what Nikon means when they say "high ISO".

Thom Hogan's explanation in his Complete Guide to the D500 is as follows: "some Nikon VR lenses use a low-power LED internally to help determine the position of the VR elements. With cameras like the D500, it is now possible to shoot in ways— e.g. extremely high ISO values—where that LED will produce a little bit of visible “fogging” that can be picked up by the image sensor."

Strange that the LED would be on when VR is off.

In any case thanks much. Curious to see if anyone can see an issue in real world shooting.

Nick

[Akira]

Nick, sorry to lengthen the thread.

I interpreted the word "fog" as the unevenness of the image quality within a frame, which is what I read in the Japanese manual.  But Thom Hogan's explanation makes good sense to me.  So, the latest VR system might use something like Hall effect devices instead of the LED-photodiode combo?

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Nikon manuals are often not written with a great degree of technical precision (whoever wrote or translated it was not an engineer who fully understood the  problem or did not notice the result is ambiguous).

The subsection concerns long exposures and high ISO settings, they do not say that these VR lenses should not be used at short exposures or low to medium ISO. This could arise when there is extremely little light from the subject and an artifact which previous cameras were not sensitive enough to see could now be seen as "fog". I would guess that the last sentence "We recommend turning VR off when using other lenses." to be an error. If they had written either "We recommend  turning VR off when using the lenses listed below for long exposures and/or high sensitivities." or "We recommend turning VR off when using any VR lens for long exposures and/or high ISO settings." depending on whether all VR lenses cause this effect to some degree, then it would be more clear what they meant.

It should be easy enough to test the effect though it doesn't make sense to use VR for long exposures in any case. If the listed VR lenses cause fogging even when VR is off, then it seems like it could be annoying problem.

I would think it is straightforward enough to test. Set ISO to (say) 1 million, go to a dark room with all lights off. Test pics with listed and unlisted VR lenses with VR on and off, and see if there is visible fogging in some but not all of the images.

[Erik Lund]

Consider it a part of the charm when reading the Nikon manuals

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Perhaps the main point is that VR adds to battery drain and they advised against using the feature in combination with long exposures. The rest could just be something lost in translation.

[David H. Hartman]

Consider it a part of the charm when reading the Nikon manuals

I've noticed errors in Nikon manuals and technical leaflets over the years. I think I've noticed errors in leaflets with things like focus screens from the late '70s and on. The AF 70-180/4.5-5.6D ED Micro-Nikkor has strange exposure compensations information. At the time I email Bjørn at his Nærfoto Bjørn Rørslett site and he explained the design implications of the F4 mirror and metering at less than f/5.6. It's been a long time. Neither the F5 nor the F3 had the problem.

Accuracy in manuals and technical leaflets hasn't been Nikon's strong point for decades. I've wondered about translation which I doubt is done by people with technical knowledge of the product.

Dave Hartman

[Akira]

I've translated user manuals of various musical instruments and have found some errors.

In the past, someone pointed out that the description of 63/3.5 being color-corrected in 350-700nm range in one edition of EL-Nikkor brochure was actually a typo, and that caused the rumor that the lens could be used for UV.

When I saw the Japanese word translated as "fog" in the D500 manual, I thought of that "partial blur" in a image frame which was reported in the thread for the early review of 80-400 VR zoom by Bjørn.  But if the LED is the culprit of the "fog" mentioned in the English manual, they should have said "slight color cast" or something like that.

[Nick Scavone]

I find it hard to believe that the manual could be that inaccurate -- seems fairly unambiguous to me. Perhaps I am naive (and I hope I am wrong). Thanks for the comments from all.

Nick

[BW]

A classical "Google translate" Have used D500 with three VR lenses and haven't noticed "fogging". That doesn't indicate that blurring might occur. I think the VR function is badly implemented in Nikon cameras. The camera should be able to override the VR of the lens and turn it on or off at a set threshold. Have gotten more than a few pictures destroyed when taking the camera on and off the tripod or changing from slow shutter speed to fast shutter speed.