Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6: the old and new Nikon lenses compared

By rlawton | News | 05/03/2013 08:20am

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Nikon’s old 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 telephoto zoom covered a useful range of focal lengths, but was not held in very high regard. The autofocus was slow and imprecise and the optical quality lagged behind Nikon’s other professional telephoto lenses.

The new AF-S NIKKOR 80–400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR is a very welcome replacement, then, but it would be a mistake to imagine it’s just a quick refresh of the existing design. From reading the specs alone, it might not be obvious that this is a completely new design, but our side-by-side illustration below shows just how different the old and new lenses are.

The old lens (left) is much smaller, shorter and stubbier than the new AF-S NIKKOR 80–400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR (right). These two lenses are shown to scale, so you can see just how much larger the new lens is.

But there’s much more to this than size alone, so here’s a quick run-down of the six key differences between the old Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 and the new one.

Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G: 6 key differences between the old and new lenses (1-3)

1. Optical construction

The old lens used 17 elements in 11 groups; the new 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 has 20 elements in 12 groups. It clearly uses a very different and more sophisticated optical design, and while the old 80-400mm lens was designed when photographers were still shooting on film and DSLRs had limited resolution, the new one has been developed specifically for the latest high-resolution Nikon pro DSLRs.

2. Autofocus

The old Nikon 80-400mm lacked Nikon’s in-built AF-S autofocus motors, which meant that the autofocus was painfully slow by modern standards. The new 80-400m f/4.5-5.6 is, like almost all modern Nikon lenses, equipped with the company’s silent wave AF-S system. We expect the new lens’s improvement in autofocus acquisition and response times to be dramatic.

3. VR (Vibration Reduction)

The old 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 offered a claimed 3-stop shutter speed advantage, but these were early days for Nikon’s VR development and its Vibration Reduction system has gone through many developments and enhancements since then. The new Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 has the latest Nikon VR system, offering a 4-stop shutter speed advantage.

Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G: 6 key differences between the old and new lenses (1-3)
Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G: 6 key differences between the old and new lenses (4-6)

Posted on Tuesday, March 5th, 2013 at 8:20 am under News. You can subscribe to comments.