To measure and compare the corner sharpness, we photographed the Enhanced Digital Camera Resolution Chart with each lens at its shortest and longest focal lengths using various aperture settings.

The crops are taken from the lower left corner of the chart and presented here at 100%. The wide angle crops which show a slightly larger area of the chart are due to minimum focusing distances forcing us to shoot from a little further away. No crops have been resized.

Zoomed-out to its widest focal length and with the aperture fully open, the new DX 18-55mm VR shows softness in the extreme corners which doesn’t improve a great deal until you’re at f11 or f16. To be fair though, its predecessor is also suffering in this regard and with both lenses at their biggest f3.5 apertures, the new VR model gives a better result here.

Zoomed-into 55mm, the situation is better but there’s still softness in the corners and it’s clear to see its predecessor is performing better. Note this test is performed at relatively close range, but we also noticed the corners of the DX 18-55mm VR were soft when zoomed-in on a distant subject at ‘infinity’ compared to the Mark II lens.