The 18-140mm has a very wide zoom ring at the front of the lens (over half the lens's length), and that ring covers the full focal length range in a bit less than a quarter turn. At 140mm, the lens extends another 2" (53mm) via two embedded barrel sections. These sections have less play and slop in them than many of the Nikon variable aperture zooms that use such designs. The 67mm front element does not rotate during zoom or focus. The front element is very close to the front of the lens, though, so be careful you don't zoom into something (or use the optional HB-32 bayonet lens hood). At the wider angle focal lengths (18-21mm), distortion is distinctly of the ''barrel'' type, with the center of the image pushing outward from the middle. This form of distortion is easier to correct in image post-processing software, as both the edges and the center of the image are barrel-distorted. At its widest point (18mm) the edges of the image show over 1% barrel distortion. Coma ( saggital coma flare) often causes weird smeared blobs to appear around bright points of light in the corners of fast or wide lenses at large apertures. In lenses that have it, coma goes away as stopped down. It features 17 elements in 13 groups, including two aspherical elements and two extra-low dispersion elements to help limit spherical aberrations and distortion, while the Super Integrated Coating suppresses flare and ghosting.

The Nikon 18-140mm exhibits a fair amount of corner shading when the lens is used wide open or at wider apertures; in the worst example, 18mm at ƒ/3.5, the very corners of the image are 3/4 EV darker than the center of the image. This shading decreases as the lens is stopped down, but only really goes away if you stop down to the ƒ/8 or ƒ/11 aperture (or smaller). The Nikon Z DX 18-140mm F3.5-6.3 VR is quite a good macro lens, offering a close minimum focusing distance of 0.2m / 0.66 ft at the 18mm focal length and 0.4 m / 1.32ft at the 140mm focal length, with a maximum magnification of 0.33x. The following examples demonstrate how close you can get to your subject. BokehMy wife got this lens some years ago as the kit lens on a D7100, and now uses it on a D7200. It’s very sharp andwell behaved. I’m guessing that the issue with some examples may be variation in focus accuracy on cameras that do not allow fine tuning. I suggest that people having difficulty here try shooting in Live View and see if the sharpness improves, using a tripod and making sure the focus point is where it should be. The example I’ve tried needed no fine tuning and worked nicely on my D3200, but it is a bit lower quality construction than the pro lenses so it may vary more from one sample to another.

Commendably given the modest asking price, this lens has a dust- and moisture-sealed design to support shooting in more inclement conditions, although Nikon do state that " This lens is not guaranteed to be dust- and drip-resistant in all situations and under all conditions".

The lens is not claimed to be weatherproof, but there is a rubber seal around the lens mount that should provide basic protection against dust and moisture. Focal Range It measures 73 x 90mm /2.9 x 3.5" when set to the 18mm focal length, making it one of the smaller zoom lenses currently available for Nikon's Z-series mirrorless cameras. The optical path has no less than 17 elements and features one aspherical element and one ED (Extra-low Dispersion) element. Nikon’s conventional Super Integrated Coating is applied to reduce ghosting and flare. The lens is very well made. Despite being "refurbished", lens appeared brand new. Took a day of use to free up the zoom and focus rings - feeling a little course at first, these are now fine. One thing I would have liked is a focus distance scale for manual focus and a wider focus ring.

My only complaint is that the sample I bought did not mount or unmount well. It felt very gritty whenever I rotated it in the mount, even worse than Sigma and Tamron lenses usually feel. I'm unsure if I got a dud, or if Nikon is cheaping-out on us. Most people rarely change lenses, so I'd not worry about this. I'm used to shooting one camera with a bag full of fixed lenses and having to change lenses for every other shot; today with this lens' huge zoom range, most of us will never change lenses. This lens only ships with front and rear lens caps - there is no lens hood or any kind of case included in the box. Focal RangeIgnore the crazy rainbow dots at small apertures; these are sensor artifacts caused by taking a picture directly of the sun and exposing for the dark underside of a huge palm tree, and using that same palm tree to hide the sky to accentuate the stars. For a Nikon design, one strange thing is that the falloff in sharpness from center to corner seems to be pretty much following the same curve throughout the focal range. The corners never get into the excellent range for me at any focal length or aperture combination. For the users this lens is destined for, that's probably fine, but don't think you're going to pull in really sharp corners on your 24mp camera without an AA filter. I think it's true to say I've built up a shooting style with the 18-200mm VR that avoids the worst of its shortcomings. It'll be nice to know that I don't have to do that with the 18-140mm VR, I will be able to shoot wide open at 140mm and get a relatively shallow depth of field without completely trashing the image quality. The lens has internal focusing (no size or position change during focus) and one aspherical and one ED element. Close focus is about 18" (0.45m), but at 140mm that gives a respectable 1:4.2 magnification ratio (a 24mm wide object will record across about a quarter of the frame).