Z7-Z6 Lenses

rmp

I am looking forward to any test of image quality between the f4 and f2.8 24-to-70 lenses. Thanks for sharing.

spraynpray

Symphotic said:

If I do this test again I will use glossy paper instead of luster, so my dots will come out more circular. I made about the smaller dots I could: periods with a font size of 5.

I made an image on my laptop with tiny white dots on a black background and got really bright white dots which seemed to work well.

BVS

spraynpray said:

WestEndFoto said:

Spraynpray, any thoughts on the coma performance of the z lenses?

It seems to me that although I have no actual knowledge of the Z lenses, coma and the astigmatisms are best in lenses with little glass in them so I doubt that the Z's will be any better than the F's.

Camera Labs has coma test shots from all the Z lenses. Basically, the 24-70/4 S is a little better than the 2.8 E at the wide end, and a little worse at the long end. The 50/1.8 S is about the same as the Zeiss Otus 55/1.4. The 35/1.8 S is a little better than the Zeiss Otus 28/1.4.

The coma tests are about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way down the pages in the "Rendering of point-light sources at night-shots" sections:

https://cameralabs.com/nikon-z-24-70mm-f4s-review/2/

https://cameralabs.com/nikon-z-35mm-f1-8s-review/2/

https://cameralabs.com/nikon-z-50mm-f1-8s-review/2/

WestEndFoto

Wow, as good as the Otus lenses at a quarter the price and less than half the weight. And auto-focus is thrown in for free! Impressive.

donaldejose

It's great to see Nikon doing so well with the new S line of lenses. Now they just need to get the Z bodies up to snuff with free software firmware changes like adding eye AF and with a "pro" body having two card slots. A year or two from now the Nikon mirrorless system may be the "primo" mirrorless system on the market.

BVS

donaldejose said:

It's great to see Nikon doing so well with the new S line of lenses. Now they just need to get the Z bodies up to snuff with free software firmware changes like adding eye AF and with a "pro" body having two card slots. A year or two from now the Nikon mirrorless system may be the "primo" mirrorless system on the market.

Eye AF and other firmware improvements are scheduled for release in May (just in case you missed it):

https://nikonrumors.com/2019/02/13/nikon-announced-again-the-development-of-new-firmware-for-the-z6-and-z7-mirrorless-cameras-with.aspx/

spraynpray

I would love to see someone post a full res Otus starscape here so I can click through to it. I have seen quite a few Zeiss shots and the aberrations are not great. Certainly not worth the money or half of it.

Symphotic

I have been re-running the tests of the 50 mm 1.8 Z vs the Sigma Art 50 mm 1.4. I am now using the test chart we use for our radiation hardened cameras, so it is no longer dots on paper. The Nikkor does quite well. The autofocus is amazing.

Maybe I can run the 35 mm against my Nikkor and Sigma 35 mm as well.

I will put some files up on Flickr for your inspection this weekend. These results don't give MFT data, but do show actual examples of resolution required by our customers in Japan. We pay our contract lab in Syracuse do MTFs for us, so it's better to rely on the lens manufacturer's published MTF charts.)

As for comparing the F/4 lens zoom, it looks good, but I don't have a similar lens to compare with. Maybe I'll set my 24-120 f/4 to 50 mm and run a comparison with that.

spraynpray

24-120 is a mediocre lens so it will look artificially good I reckon.

WestEndFoto

spraynpray said:

24-120 is a mediocre lens so it will look artificially good I reckon.

How does a mediocre lens look artificially good? Where can I buy some artificializer?

Capt_Spaulding

WestEndFoto said:

spraynpray said:

24-120 is a mediocre lens so it will look artificially good I reckon.

How does a mediocre lens look artificially good? Where can I buy some artificializer?

I think you may have the directional arrow reversed. But, if you find some of that artificializer, I'm in for a couple of gallons.

spraynpray

LOL! Sorry guys, I meant the 24-120 is mediocre and will make the Z lens artifically better than if it were compared to a very good F lens.

WestEndFoto

Ha ha!

Capt_Spaulding

I still really want some of that artificializer.

Symphotic

All these images look a lot better than what I am used to seeing with radhard cameras...

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmvTpVFL

Symphotic

The 70 - 200 f/2.8 is on the roadmap for this year. I'm really keen to know what kind of results the telephoto lens will give with Z setup, By year end we will have two of the Z troika.

Ton14

The 70 - 200 f/4 on the Nikon Z6 with the FTZ adapter has superior IQ, the "native" S f/2.8 lens can only be better I think. The same with the 24 - 70mm f/2.8. I have the first one without VR. I start posting some test results on PAD.

For BIF the viewfinder becomes a little bit behind, but I never use 12 fps or so, mostly 3 or 4 and with my first tests I found out that until now nothing changed for me.

Set the FN1 button to zoom 100%. making manual focus very quick and easy in static situations, un-dust your old MF lenses, yeahhh.

mhedges

Starting to see some more Z mount lens mockup pics from the show. The 70-200 is disappointingly big, at least to me. But the 85 1.8 sure looks sweet.

BVS

Images from CP+ of the new 14-24/2.8, 70-200/2.8, 50/1.2, 85/1,8, 24/1.8, and 20/1.8:

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=2&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://ponkoshu.com/highlights-cpplus-2019-nikon/&xid=17259,15700021,15700186,15700190,15700248,15700253&usg=ALkJrhh8ieVh17cgqmzp1omkm_keveD3Qg

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4370591

BVS

mhedges said:

Starting to see some more Z mount lens mockup pics from the show. The 70-200 is disappointingly big, at least to me. But the 85 1.8 sure looks sweet.

The 50/1.2 is also crazy big for some reason.

PB_PM

mhedges said:

Starting to see some more Z mount lens mockup pics from the show. The 70-200 is disappointingly big, at least to me. But the 85 1.8 sure looks sweet.

Don't know what you were expecting, the optics still have to cover the FX frame, there is no magical bullet to fix that as long as we are using glass optics. I suppose Nikon could have tried using PF elements, but we haven't seen those implemented in a zoom yet, so there could be reasons for that.

mhedges

PB_PM said:

mhedges said:

Starting to see some more Z mount lens mockup pics from the show. The 70-200 is disappointingly big, at least to me. But the 85 1.8 sure looks sweet.

Don't know what you were expecting, the optics still have to cover the FX frame, there is no magical bullet to fix that as long as we are using glass optics. I suppose Nikon could have tried using PF elements, but we haven't seen those implemented in a zoom yet, so there could be reasons for that.

Well there were rumors posted by Peter on some of the blog posts that the 70-200 would be about the same size as the F mount 24-70. And the Canon RF 70-200 looks to be quite short, but I expect that lens extends when zooming.

PB_PM

The F mount 24-70mm F2.8 and 70-200mm F2.8 aren't massively different size wise, in terms of width anyway, so that is still fully possible. Do we have actual measurements of the Z-mount lenses size? Hard to judge when it's beside a small prime.

Having a zoom that extends could be more compact, but then again it makes it harder to make the lens water an dust resistant. I always prefer fixed length lenses myself, they just seem more robust.

donaldejose

The 85mm f1.8 looks like a very nice size for the Z bodies. I hope sharpness and bokeh are great so you don't need an f1.4 version. The 70-200 f2.8 looks too big to me.

Ton14

Info. The Tamron 35mm f/1.8 DI VC USD does not work on the Nikon Z with FTZ adapter and still no firmware available.