Nikon AF-P DX Nikkor 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6 VR Review

Nikon AF-P DX Nikkor 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR Performance

At 10mm, central sharpness is excellent from f/4.5 to f/11, very good at f/16 and dropping off at f/22 but remaining good. At the edges, we see very good performance from f/4.5 to f/11, good at f/16 and f/22.

12mm shows a similar picture, with central excellence from f/4.8 to f/11, sharpness still being very good at f/16 and good at f/25. The edges have excellent sharpness from f/4.8 to f/8, very good at f/11 and f/16 and just good at f/25.

Sharpness at 14mm is very good centrally at f/5 and f/5.6, becoming excellent at f/8 and f/11. This remains very good at f/16 and good at f/25. The edges are very good at f/5 and f/5.6, excellent at f/8 and f/11, very good at f/16 but becoming soft by f/25.

By 20mm, central sharpness is very good at f/5.6, excellent at f/8, very good from f/11 to f/16, good at f/11 but by f/29 quite soft. The edges are very good from f/5.6 through to f/16, dropping to good at f/22 and then becoming soft at f/29.              

CA (Chromatic Aberration) is actually rather well controlled, very impressively so for such an inexpensive optic. It is very difficult to induce any fringing and it is unlikely that software correction will be needed.

Barrel distortion is present, as expected in any ultra-wide lens. At 10mm this is a quite obvious -3.69%, at 12mm this has improved to -2.02%, at 14mm -1.09% and by 20mm it is almost rectilinear, measuring -0.36%. This is a very respectable performance and can be corrected in software if desired.

Flare performance is excellent, with the lens showing very little tendency to reduced contrast or creation of artefacts in the images. It can be use with confidence against the light.

Bokeh is the quality of the out of focus areas in an image. At 10-20mm the cases where we will have out of focus backgrounds are less common, but nonetheless images do show a nice restrained bokeh, without the busy look that some lenses can create.

The provision of VR is perhaps less necessary in such a wide lens, but it does deliver the claimed 3.5 stops advantage and as such has to be an advantage, especially at the 20mm end of the scale.

Value For Money

The AF-P DX Nikkor 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR is priced at £329, a very modest cost for the specification.

Two lenses look likely competitors. The Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM also costs £329 and has the added advantage of the constant aperture. The Tokina 11-20mm f/2.8 AT-X PRO DX has an even wider constant aperture and costs £499.

However, neither of these are as small or light as the Nikon, which does look excellent value for money.

For more options have a look at the Top 14 Best Nikon Lenses, and the Top 15 Wide-angle Landscape Lenses.

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