The Tale of the 18-55

My Honey, the Olympus gal, was in desperate need of a faster digital camera than her Nikon P5100, which I bought her as a Christmas gift in 2009. She needed something light and small; those were the requirements. And the Nikon D3100 fit the bill.

She held it in her hand, and it received immediate spousal approval. So I bought it for her with the famous, plastic-mount, AF-S DX Zoom 18-55mm G VR II. Even I, the D90 snob, have to admit it was incredibly portable and fun to use. And use it she did.

Giving a DSLR to your honey means never having to say you don’t have a gift in mind for her that will receive deferred appreciation. So, when I bought her the AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8, she eventually enjoyed it.

The 18-55 lead a long and prosperous life, until one day my honey asked me how she’s supposed to remove it from the camera. As she said this, it was dangling from the plastic mount, which was still attached the camera. As everyone predicts will happen eventually with this lens, the mount did indeed break, only not where one would think. The plastic bosses into which the mount is screwed broke. If it had been the actual mount, I would have ordered one and installed it myself. But it was technically the body that had broken, and it simply wasn’t worth fixing. If ever there was a disposable lens, this was it.

So, I took it from her, and lovingly repaired it myself by rebuilding the tiny bosses with cyanoacrylate glue, re-drilled them, and reattaching the mount. So far so good. I kept the lens for myself, because I had every intention of replacing it for her with something better.

She loved the 18-55, but always complained that it wasn’t long enough. So, knowing that unlike myself, she was not to be a collector of lenses, for my next trick I bought her the AF-S DX Zoom 18-200mm. The only lens she would ever need. And that did seem to receive immediate approval.

So, now that I have this “reborn” DX 18-55mm lens, and a new full-frame DSLR, what am I to do with it? Well, when a friend who is desperately in search of the perfect DSLR told me had read bad things about the DX 18-55, I started to think.

Lens evaluation is extremely subjective. Everyone has a different criteria against which they judge lenses. For some, if the lens isn’t the sharpest knife in the block, it is immediately dismissed. Certainly the reliability factor of this lens is to be considered, and for someone looking for a lens they can toss about, this is not a good candidate. But for someone that takes it out only occasionally for a sunday drive, it cuts down on a lot of bulk.

So, I mounted it to my full-frame D610, and this is what I discovered:

AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
FX Mode @ 55mm, @ f/5.6, 4512 x 3008 px (M)

Like the DX 35mm f/1.8, the 18-55 has a fairly large image circle. So, if you shoot it full-frame it has a useful range of 24-55mm. It also focuses incredibly close, so at 55mm this is possible.

But when you switch over to DX mode, it’s like having a whole new lens:

DX Mode @ 82.5mm, f/5.6, 3936 x 2624

It’s like switching to a macro lens. I specifically shot the first image at the medium resolution setting, because quite frankly, the D610’s 24MP image size (6016 x 4016) is actually unnecessarily large for most purposes. Even at the medium setting, it’s larger than the D90’s “L” resolution (4288 x 2848). So, for the first time ever, I’m actually not shooting at the camera’s highest resolution setting.

But when shooting DX with this camera, I do use the L setting, which yields wonderful 10MP images of 3936 x 2624. They say that 6MP is all you’ll ever need, and by that standard, these images rock, because they come from the D610’s less-congested sensor.

At the wide end, if you dial in a focal length of 24mm, you actually get 24mm, but with no “vignetting” (corner clipping) in FX full-frame mode. So, this tiny lens has almost the same range as my new AF-S Zoom 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G ED VR. But in low-key shots, you can achieve this nice dark-corner effect…

FX Mode @ 24mm,  f/5.6 6016 x 4016

The dark corner in the upper right is mostly due to the shadow cast by the porch roof; the lower right is considerably lighter. The borders are amazingly sharp, even the near-corners. But, the far corners are quite soft, as to be expected as this is literally the edge of the image circle.

So, if you pull back on the zoom, you can dial in a Holga-like dark corner effect. In fact, you could pull all the way out to 18mm and crop the image square, right in the camera.

All of these capabilities give this lens incredible versatility on the D610. And all with VR. And, a tiny 52mm filter size.

So, if you’re walking around this this lens and don’t have a telephoto with you to swap out, what do you do with a lens that tops out at 82.5mm?

DX Mode, 82.5mm @ f/5.6, 200% crop, 1944 x 1296 px (2.5MP)
(Actually shot in HDR mode to preserve the cloud and sky detail)

Why, you crop it, of course! This is the cupola of my daughter’s old school shot in DX mode at 55mm (which is 82.5mm in DX). Cropped at approximately 200%, it yields the equivalent of a 160mm lens. Not great for printing, but certainly fine for posting online. My secret? I sharpen all lores images image at between 300 and 500% at 0.5 px, and sometimes add just a touch of grain after the sharpening. Adobe Camera Raw has a better grain engine that photoshop, but photoshop does a better job with unsharp mask. So I work in TIFF and use a combination of the two before my final save to JPEG with  maximum quality.

Thanks again to my Friend Tony, who turned me on to this wonderful lens for my D610!