Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S

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It’s not strong enough to be noticed most of the time, and I’ve certainly seen worse – but I’ve also seen better. Under some conditions, it can harm lens’s bokeh a bit. Speaking of… Bokeh Flare: 24mm is remarkably good with light sources in and near frame edge. Even veiling flare is well handled. I was only able to produce clear colored ghosting artifacts at the telephoto end, and only rarely.

When I began moving to the Nikon Z mirrorless system about three years ago, getting the Z 24-70 f2.8 S lens wasn’t a priority. Maybe this was partly because I already owned the first gen F mount G version of the lens, which I could use with the FTZ adapter. But it was also because I got a great deal on the Z6 24-70 f4 kit bundle. The 24-70mm f4 S isn’t a bokeh king like the 2.8, but this wasn’t much of a concern for the kind of work I did. However, after a few months of using it as a walkabout lens for street and cityscape photography, I did wish I had a longer focal range.In our image quality tests so far, the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S’s performance has ranged from bad (bokeh and distortion) to solid (vignetting and chromatic aberration) to very good (flare and sunstars). But what about the test that’s on everyone’s mind: sharpness? An internal focusing mechanism means the lens barrel doesn't move, and it offers an impressive minimum focusing distance of 0.35m (1.15ft) and a maximum magnification ratio of 0.39x, whilst using 77m filters. Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as blue or purple fringes along contrasty edges, were not especially apparent in our test shots, only appearing in very high contrast areas. Vignetting That said, I did measure a bit of field curvature on the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S. It’s not enough to harm real-world landscape photos under most conditions, though.

Both of these lenses take amazing pictures and I found it very hard to see any discernible differences between the two. Both are exceptionally sharp and handle flare very well. Some early sharpness charts from Nikon show that the 24-120 should technically be the sharper of the two but those MFT graphs are not that interesting to me. Colours look great on both and distortion isn’t an issue. We know Nikon fixes distortion in camera so I wasn’t expecting to see any. It can also be used on an APS-C cropped sensor camera body like the Z50 and Z fc, where it offers an effective 36-180mm focal range. Before that, let’s dive into the feature set and specifications of the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S. As expected of an S-Line lens, the 24-120mm f/4 S has plenty of impressive features. However, it’s not perfect. The Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S Specifications If this 1,200×900 pixel crop is about 3" (7.5cm) wide on your screen, the complete image would print at a large 14×21″ (35×55 cm) at this same high magnification. Thankfully, both lenses improve dramatically upon stopping down and/or zooming in from 24mm. At landscape apertures like f/8-16, I have no real issues with either lens. Remember that most post-processing software directly reads information from the in-camera vignetting setting on your Nikon Z camera. So, if you want this distortion to be removed automatically in post, make sure to set Medium or High vignetting correction on your camera.In the Z 24-120mm f/4 S lens, Nikon have employed an iris diaphragm with 9 rounded blades, which combined with the rather slow maximum aperture results in fairly nice bokeh in our view. As for sunstars on the Z 24-120mm f/4 S, they were better than I expected, and definitely above average for a zoom like this. Although I’ve occasionally seen better sunstars on wide-angle primes, I can’t complain about this at all: NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 24mm, ISO 64, 1/30, f/16.0 Nikon's Z-series mirrorless cameras correct for any or all of distortion, diffraction and falloff (vignette control). Distortion control cannot be turned off, while diffraction and falloff (vignette control) correction can be changed.

The Z 24-120mm f/4 does just about everything well. If you think you want a reasonably fast all-around lens, boom!, here you go. Better performance would have been welcome, of course, but this isn’t so bad. In real-world images, it will be less obtrusive than this, since subject details always obscure vignetting somewhat. Not to mention that a bit of vignetting is welcome for many photos. If you're not getting ultra-sharp pictures with this, be sure not to shoot at f/11 or smaller where all lenses are softer due to diffraction, always shoot at ISO 100 or below because cameras become softer at ISO 200 and above, avoid shooting across long distances over land which can lead to atmospheric heat shimmer, be sure everything is in perfect focus, set your camera's sharpening as you want it (I set mine to the maximum) and be sure nothing is moving, either camera or subject. If you want to ensure a soft image with any lens, shoot at f/16 or smaller at ISO 1,600 or above at default sharpening in daylight of subjects at differing distances in the same image. Throughout the zoom range, I found practically no flare when the sun was in the corner of the frame or outside the composition. The greatest amount of flare occurred when I composed the sun about halfway into the frame. This was true at every focal length. Stopping down made the dots of flare a bit more defined, but it didn’t add any additional flare. No meaningful flare when the sun is in the corner! 24mm @ f/5.6 (but this holds true throughout the zoom range) Flare only visible when the sun is partway into the frame, and even then isn’t bad (same settings) At minimum focus distance (1:2.4, which is getting near macro range) the lens is very good in the center at f/4, excellent by f/8. The DX corner is fair at f/4, good by f/8. The far FX corners never make it past fair at minimum focus distance, though. I'd also judge the lens to have some clear field curvature at close distance.Weighing in at 630g (1 lb 6.3oz) and measuring 118mm (4.7in.) in length (when set to the 24mm focal length), the Z 24-120mm f/4 S is a relatively light and compact lens given the versatile focal range of 24-120mm that's on offer. So, not a bad performance, but there’s still some chromatic aberration there. Some Nikon Z lenses – both primes and zooms – have such low chromatic aberration that it’s never visible in real-world photos. Even so, this level is easy to correct in post-processing without leaving obtrusive artifacts behind. A smaller difference is that the Nikon Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 has vibration reduction, while the 24-120mm f/4 S curiously does not. This isn’t a big deal considering that Nikon’s in-body image stabilization works really well with the 24-120mm f/4 S. Using both lenses side by side, I don’t notice any difference in stabilization quality between them, even at the longer focal lengths above 100mm, on a Nikon camera with IBIS.