Don't calibrate this lens, REPEAT, DO NOT CALIBRATE THIS LENS. Simply go to GROUP AUTO FOCUS and use the center focusing spot, yes, you will be pleased with the result. When you recalibrate a lens you can only do it for a specific distance and you will mess that lens up for all other distances. ( and boy will folks disagree with me, but not Nikon, they warn against it in all their manuals) Nikon has spent a lot of money calibrating that lens in the factory. It is good to go. The problems with your Cardinal is that your camera focusing spot focused on the background and not the bird, if you use GROUP AUTO FOCUS and keep the four dots on the bird you WILL NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM, the problem is in the focusing system you choose for your camera, NOT THE LENS. DO NOT RECALIBRATE YOUR LENS, STEP AWAY FROM THE LENS and go to GROUP AUTO FOCUS.

Danoliver,

Just did a 10 days, 5 city tour of China demoing a Nikon D500 with a Nikon 18mm-300mm lens. I can tell you it's a great travel camera and it did everything any of my full frame Nikon bodies could do at a lighter weight.

As a member of Nikon Professional Service I think it's BS when someone claims they are better because they use a full frame camera. It's not the camera, it's the person behind it.

If you want, feel free to look at my images from China taken with the D500.

Rob