What Z lenses are you looking forward to or hoping for

rmp

I'm having a hard time choosing my next Z lens.
I have a Z7 with the 24-70 f4 lens and a lot of older Nikon F mount lenses. I love the light weight, the image quality, and the stabilization the z7 gives me. But, what should my next lens be?
I have the newest 70-200 F2.8 f mount lens. Should I go for the new z-70-200 f2.8 for IQ? 0r the light weight and smaller new z24-200?

photobunny

@rmp the F 70-200 vs the Z 70-200 seems to be less about IQ and more about native vs non native. Both are amazing lenses. Personally I am going for the 70-200 f/2.8 Z, I don't consider the 24-200 as there are too many trade offs with a super zoom and even then most of my pictures start at 200 so I would be happier with a 200mm f/2.8 S prime.

ggbutcher

I bought a AF-P 70-300mm about six months ago for the reach. Thinking I should have waited for the small 24-200; about the FF focal length equivalent to the 18-140 on the D7000, if the IQ is decent.

Pistnbroke

a 400mm DX lens would be great ..small light then use it on an whatever body gives best POI and focus

photobunny

Really need to get the 100-400S soon or a 500mm S f/5.6. I am not going to buy any Nikon legacy lenses but am craving the 300+ mm set. I attacked my old Canon 5D Mark II with a screwdriver and got it to boot up again and 'fixed' the clip so I can mount my 300mm f/2.8 from 1988 on to it, but I am dying to get my Z6 doing something more productive than cat pictures.

WestEndFoto

More compact primes that I will buy if the Z5 is a Z50 with a full frame sensor. It would be nice if those lenses had VR, but if not, it is not a deal breaker.

And more primes. The only prime that I don't think I will eventually own in the current lineup is the 105 macro (I will hold out for a 200 or greater).

But I will start at the bottom of the Z line and slowly work my way up. Say a body or lens every 3 or 4 months. My top end is currently covered by f-mount.

NSXTypeR

A new 105mm macro would be nice, but I'm not sure if I'd switch. Lens wise I'm pretty much set.

MegapixelSchnitzel

Since I like old barns, decaying structures and architectural shots in general - a tilt/shift would be nice. I hate converging lines unless its railroad tracks disappearing in the distance.

photobunny

Really hoping the 500mm f/5.6 goes native soon. It is cheep enough that it won't matter much if I just get a d500 to put on it for 5 years but also expensive enough that I would prefer to buy a Z version as it just looks like the super tele made for the small mirrorless cameras.

Really craving something longer than the 85mm f/1.8 S, it is a really lovely lens but I am not getting close enough with it for wildlife. But am getting used to it for when I am forced into wedding photography again later in the year.

KnockKnock

Interesting news about a 24-50mm. Sort of begs for a 50-150 compact/slow partner. I see the post comments on the blog are tearing at it for not being longer or faster. For them, the 24-70 f/4 isn't going anywhere.

But I think it's creative and gutsy to put out what should be a very compact lens for mirrorless. Sure, not the target audience for this pro/enthusiast site, but it's a better draw for DX users than the D610, D750, Z6 were or have been, simply from the compactness standpoint.

PB_PM

What is with these new "kit" class lenses, starting at F4 and going to F6.3. Gee Nikon, what happened too the old school F3.5-5.6 type, guess those are just cut into profits too much.

photobunny

A f/4.0 to f/6.3 or even f/7.1 is possible with mirrorless now and keeps the cost down. A lot of these kit lenses do indeed need to be cheep and cheerful and they are not for anyone on this site. f/6.3 is a negligible difference from f/5.6 being only 1/3rd of a stop. What you’ll notice before the lack of bokeh is the the lack of sharpness most likely.

And for any beginner a closed down lens is much easier to get a get a in focus picture with their camera in full auto.

PB_PM

The real problem people on a budget will see is what F6.3 will do to auto focus. On a bright sunny day, no problem, but indoors? In the evening? It could leave a bad taste in people’s minds and drive them elsewhere. Nikon continues to mess up what could be a good system in favour of profit margins. I know they need it, but you kind of need a loss leader when trying to establish a new system. A solid 28-70 F3.5-5.6 could do that, it doesn’t need to compete with the 24-70 F4, on sharpness, because hey it’s a kit lens. Everything they are doing with the Z is just turning me off from the brand, I’ll be keeping my F-mount stuff till the cameras die, then look elsewhere.

photobunny

A f/6.3 will focus as well as a f/5.6 on the mirrorless. And mind we shoved f/5.6 kit lenses on crop cameras which is letting in even less light to the sensor than a f/6.3 on full frame.

Indoors is went for f/2.0, ISO 640, 1/60 to get am exposure of my cat in what is considered a well lit home here. At f/5.6 its ISO 6400 and then at f/6.3 it is ISO 8000. This matters to me and it matters to people on this forum, but the image is vastly better than anything out of a phone or a crop camera with a f/5.6 lens.

Example indoor shots I'll also note my z6 is focusing stopped down for these tests and focuses quickly on a subject people with a kit lens would shoot(A cat). What f/6.3 won't do is keep up with a toddler running about in the evening but f/5.6 won't fix that problem ether. If we really want a good kit lens, shove in a cheep f/2.0 macro capable prime.

tc88

photobunny said:

A f/6.3 will focus as well as a f/5.6 on the mirrorless. And mind we shoved f/5.6 kit lenses on crop cameras which is letting in even less light to the sensor than a f/6.3 on full frame.

I'm nitpicking here. But AF performance on DSLR has nothing to do with sensor size because it's separate from the sensor. And f/5.6 will AF better than f/6.3, not necessarily because of the amount of the light since that can easily vary, but because phase detection will operate better with shallower depth of field.

Now on mirrorless, assume it's stopped down, I suppose f/6.3 and f/5.6 will AF the same. But you still lose the capability to shoot f/5.6.

snakebunk

tc88: I agree with your first section, but why would f5. 6 and f6. 3 have equal af on mirorrless? Is there a difference in phase detection between DSLRs and MLs that I miss?

tc88

@snakebunk, I could very well be wrong since I have only tested mirrorless, but don't own one yet. My understanding is what you see in view finder is what you get. So if you use a f/5.6 lens and stop down to f/6.3. On DSLR, the stop down happens only right before the picture is taken. On mirrorless, I would imagine it's stopped down all the time? Otherwise the viewfinder won't reflect the correct depth of field? In that case, I would imagine AF has to operate at whatever the aperture it's set. But someone with a mirrorless can chime in and confirm or correct my understanding.

photobunny

tc88 said:

@snakebunk, I could very well be wrong since I have only tested mirrorless, but don't own one yet. My understanding is what you see in view finder is what you get. So if you use a f/5.6 lens and stop down to f/6.3. On DSLR, the stop down happens only right before the picture is taken. On mirrorless, I would imagine it's stopped down all the time? Otherwise the viewfinder won't reflect the correct depth of field? In that case, I would imagine AF has to operate at whatever the aperture it's set. But someone with a mirrorless can chime in and confirm or correct my understanding.

You can set it as what you see is what you get or you can set it to give you a reasonable screen exposure based on the lens being wide open. AF is faster when you disable the preview(Canon mirrorless focus wide open). But there is no f/5.6 limit as we had on DSLR(I am aware some pro cameras offer f/8). Mirrorless can focus f/11 and f/14 lenses. f/11 focusing isn't going to be lightning quick, but a f/11 lens is also not going to be aimed at anyone visiting a forum that knows anything about cameras.

I use modes on my Z6 but the 50mm S and 85mm S are in focal lengths what don't really need the fastest focusing. And when I get the 70-200mm S I am likely to shoot it wide open regardless.

photobunny

tc88 said:

photobunny said:

A f/6.3 will focus as well as a f/5.6 on the mirrorless. And mind we shoved f/5.6 kit lenses on crop cameras which is letting in even less light to the sensor than a f/6.3 on full frame.

I'm nitpicking here. But AF performance on DSLR has nothing to do with sensor size because it's separate from the sensor. And f/5.6 will AF better than f/6.3, not necessarily because of the amount of the light since that can easily vary, but because phase detection will operate better with shallower depth of field.

Now on mirrorless, assume it's stopped down, I suppose f/6.3 and f/5.6 will AF the same. But you still lose the capability to shoot f/5.6.

Aye the second part of that quote is purely referring to light hitting the sensor(which will have some impact on a DSLR as less light will result in worse AF performance, but I think it would be negligible). Regardless, on both the Nikon and Canon side people are getting all worried about f/6.3 and f/7.1 lenses which are only 1/3rd or 2/3rds of a stop slower than f/5.6 and in the real world on a mirrorless camera that can do ISO 10000(not limited to mirrorless) that looks better than my old cameras ISO 1600, it just makes cheeper lenses or lenses not possible before, for better or worse.

Canon are bringing out a 600mm and 800mm f/11 and their 100-400 is now 100-500mm with f/7.1 at 500mm, which caused the same ruckus as a f/6.3 caused here even though people using the 100-400 where quite happy to put a 1.4x converter on the old lens to get a f/8 560mm.

I trust both Nikon and Canon know what they are doing and that perhaps there is some old thinking going on with photographers, and I am guilty of said old thinking but then I go out and set my 85mm S to f/6.3 and f/7.1 and it shows that these lenses are going to work out in the open and even in the forest I was getting 1/250 with f/7.1 so if these new lenses are all easy on my shoulder why not?

tc88

photobunny said:

AF is faster when you disable the preview(Canon mirrorless focus wide open).

Ok, thanks for the insight and correction. In that case, I can see f/5.6 can still have an advantage even on mirrorless AF.

photobunny said:

Aye the second part of that quote is purely referring to light hitting the sensor(which will have some impact on a DSLR as less light will result in worse AF performance, but I think it would be negligible).

Sorry to be still nitpicking. But that's not correct as I mentioned earlier. FX sensor gathers more light overall, but not more light density. Since the AF module of DSLR is located separately from the sensor, whether it's FX or DX sensor is irrelevant to AF performance.

PB_PM

Not exactly the same, since the AF points on the FX cameras, can in theory be physically larger. I don't know if that is the case though, and I suspect they are not.

photobunny

tc88 said:

photobunny said:

AF is faster when you disable the preview(Canon mirrorless focus wide open).

Ok, thanks for the insight and correction. In that case, I can see f/5.6 can still have an advantage even on mirrorless AF.

f/5.6 will still have an advantage, that is not in dispute. I don't think the target base will care if it focuses a fraction slower than a f/5.6 or that it was at ISO 4000 instead of ISO3200. Even that RF 100-500mm L f/7.1 is tempting me unless something as interesting pops up for my Nikon Z6(Which I am dying to get past 85mm).

heartyfisher

I don't know but I would think that DSLR AF that needs to get though a mirror and reflected TWICE through smaller mirrors, thus limiting the "Aperture" to only the center of the frame, would be significantly worse than a Mirrorless system that directly reads the light through the lens across the whole frame and aperture of the lens.

PB_PM

And yet mirrorless performs worse in every low light test I’ve ever seen. They have a ways to go yet.

photobunny

PB_PM said:

And yet mirrorless performs worse in every low light test I’ve ever seen. They have a ways to go yet.

I don't think anyone has ever said mirrorless outperforms a DSLR in every AF scenario. Its only trump card is it can AF f/16 and with minimal hunting in very low light with the 85mm f/1.8 S I might add.

And now let's get back on topic, this thread is a wish list of lenses that are ether now possible with PF and Z mounts or just that one lens of old we want updated.