Let's complain about lenses!

photobunny

This is isn’t intended to be too serious a conversation

I have noticed on the S line of lenses we have two tiers and the top tier has the OLED display on it. For instance the 24-70 f/2.8 vs f/4 and the upcoming 50mm f/1.2 vs the f/1.8 version. So are we considering this the new gold ring?

Edit: Just to add I know S is the top of the line gold ring equivalent. So there is more than a wee bit of tongue and cheek. It is however interesting to note in the Canon side a white lens hood makes it a more L, L lens.

WestEndFoto

S is the gold ring. There were plenty of gold ring lenses that I thought were almost, but not quite, mediocre.

Think of the OLED as premium gold ring.

PB_PM

No doubt, there is no way the 24-120mm F4 VR should have had a gold ring. I agree, S is clearly the "Signature" line of lenses. Guess Nikon realized that the Gold ring thing was kind of silly, just copying the Canon Red Ring.

tc88

Canon's 24-105 f/4 and 17-40 f/4 also have red ring. They are all similar quality. Pretty much all f/4 zooms have a ring.

spraynpray

PB_PM said:

No doubt, there is no way the 24-120mm F4 VR should have had a gold ring.

Yep. Agreed.

Pistnbroke

24-120 f4 JUNK and I dont think any of the Z zooms are any better

mhedges

Pistnbroke said:

24-120 f4 JUNK and I dont think any of the Z zooms are any better

Huh? Z 24-70 2.8 is outstanding. And the F4 version is about as good as the F mount 2.8's, other than being a F4 lens. The 14-30 is decent enough too, expecially for 24 mp.

photobunny

I was hoping people would have a wee bit more fun than this. Kinda more taking the mick of the concept rather than hating particular lenses.

Symphotic

WestEndFoto said:

S is the gold ring. There were plenty of gold ring lenses that I thought were almost, but not quite, mediocre.



Think of the OLED as premium gold ring.

Yep. There are some gold ring lenses that are not up to the gold standard in performance. So far no disappointments with S lenses.

OLED is cool, but I don't look at it once I set up for shooting.

mhedges

photobunny said:

I was hoping people would have a wee bit more fun than this. Kinda more taking the mick of the concept rather than hating particular lenses.

Ah. Well in that case yes - it mostly seems like a gimmick to me.

I suppose the DOF display could come in handy in certain situations. Other than that I can't see a whole lot of benefit from it.

PB_PM

Nikon was trying desperately to do something to distinguish their gear from others, problem they do it in all the wrong places. They should have put more R&D into auto focus, rather than useless energy sucking LCD screens on the lenses. All that information could have been displayed on the rear LCD/EVF, what a waste.

Pistnbroke

I have spent some time studying lenses via DXO, sharpness and field.
If I take one lens and look at how may MP it "needs" on different cameras it goes like this ...D800 (heavy LPF) 20 MP D810 (no LPF) 28MP D850 30MP. The sharpest lens produced by Nikon can only use 37MP on a D850. The Z zooms don't do very well. I think one of you said good on a Z6 and Thom Hogan said " adequate"
So I conclude that the Z mount has not done a lot for IQ and a 60 MP sensor will not help except for BIF.A 30 MP DX replacement for the D500 would be a better option.

spraynpray

Pistnbroke said:

So I conclude that the Z mount has not done a lot for IQ and a 60 MP sensor will not help except for BIF.A 30 MP DX replacement for the D500 would be a better option.

Surely the pixel pitch is a lot finer on a 30mP DX than a D850?

WestEndFoto

I doubt that Nikon will ever allow an “upgrade from FX to DX so you can get more pixels on the bird” narrative to exist again.

spraynpray

Canon have though I think?

WestEndFoto

Not sure.

tc88

One thing I don't like the Z lens is the forced lens profile correction. When that happens, you lose sharpness because the pixels are all interpolated. Now if you need to do another round of transformation post processing (say turning the picture slightly to straighten it), that's a second round of interpolation.

I wish there is way to disable the correction. But I think it's always turned on and embedded in the raw file?

PB_PM

It's a general trend by all the manufactures, it allows them to make less well corrected lenses, and thus increase profit margins. We first saw that in the early m4/3s and Fuji X-mount, both of which looked terrible uncorrected. I'd hate to see what Nikon is doing without it turned on, if they are pulling the same stunt.

WestEndFoto

Perhaps you would be willing to pay 20% more for your gear to obviate the need for such a correction?

snakebunk

@tc88: Are you saying that there is some image processing done even if you shoot raw? It seems very hard to do since the raw data doesn't even have the rgb pixel pattern converted to color.

tc88

@snakebunk, well, pretty much every raw file has a lens correction profile attached to it. Lightroom will interpret the algorithm and apply it on top of the raw. But in the past you can turn it on and off in Lightroom. But I think it's forced to ON and you can't turn it off in the Z lens case. That's what my understanding is. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. Now I think some other obscure converter may still allow skipping the profile since I remember seeing some uncorrected example.

@PB_PM, yes I agree that's a very big short cut that Nikon is doing. Especially considering that the Z mount is supposed to make lens design easier. The worst correction is on wide angle side too which the short flange distance is claimed to help greatly.

@WestEndFoto, well people don't like paying more to get what they used to have for less. The price is constrained by what people are willing to pay for a given quality.

snakebunk

@tc88: Thanks, that makes technical sense. But I wonder why Lightroom would enforce it. I never use profile correction personally.

tc88

@snakebunk, my guess is that there is a flag in RAW that says whether to always apply correction profile or not. It's set by the camera maker. Lightroom just honors that flag when it reads the RAW file.

snakebunk

I think it is very important to know exactly what level of processing has been applied when you compare lenses.

Pistnbroke

I think I read a comment that the reason the Z lenses do so bad on DXO is because DXO have turned off the corrections. But the more I read about Z the less interested in making a purchase I get

snakebunk

Well done DXO (if what you heard is true).

I am not convince about the Z mount either, but it may change. If possible and if money matters, I think it is good to wait a couple of years more before making your mirrorless mount choice.