Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S

Product Information

It’s a shame that the new lens misses out on optical image stabilization leaving Zfc and Z50 shooters at the mercy of the reciprocal rule. But if you are shooting a full-frame Z camera – your in-body sensor-based stabilization already has you covered. The Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S is a versatile 5x travel-zoom lens for Nikon Z-series full-frame mirrorless cameras. At 120mm vignetting is also more pronounced and nearing 2 stops again, and the edges of the most dramatic vignetting are in further from the corners. You really have to stop down to f/8 to get to an ignorable level with corrections, and without corrections you'll always have at least a stop of vignetting in the corners. There's a configurable ring on the lens barrel which allows you to control either aperture, exposure compensation or ISO speed. I've seen some other published examples that show some side-to-side issues, but my sample appears to be quite well controlled and thus well aligned.

Especially with their more complex zooms, Nikon has been pushing high-distortion lens designs in recent years. Granted, their reasoning makes sense: Distortion is one of the easier lens flaw to correct in post-processing. When you stretch the image straight, you lose a bit of sharpness (especially in the corners), and the composition must be cropped a bit. But those issues are usually pretty minor. A lens that’s already sharp can handle it. NIKON Z 7_2 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 24mm, ISO 64, 1/800, f/5.6 There are no lateral color fringes as shot on Nikon cameras as JPG, which by default correct for any that may be there.It features an optical structure comprised of 16 elements in 13 groups, including 3 ED elements, 1 aspherical ED element, 3 aspherical elements, elements with Nano Crystal and ARNEO coats, and a fluorine-coated front lens element. People worry waaaaay too much about lens sharpness. It's not 1968 anymore when lenses often weren't that sharp and there could be significant differences among them; ever since about 2010 all new lenses are all pretty much equally fantastic. Here, the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S puts in a great performance with very crisp results throughout the zoom range and aperture range. Below, you can compare the lens’s focal lengths and see the strongest and weakest points. Fair warning – the difference between strongest and weakest on the 24-120mm f/4 S is much smaller than on most lenses! Sealing: yes. All three lenses have a rubber grommet at the lens-mount. And the Z-Nikkors have further special weather-sealing throughout the construction. [+]

Beyond that, the control ring on the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S can only be set to adjust aperture, ISO, or exposure compensation. I find that it’s easy to hit the control ring by accident since it’s positioned so close to the camera body. I just leave it disabled. I can't see any s p h e r o c h r o m a t i s m; this lens gets softer this close at f/4 which covers any that might be there, and I can't see any at longer distances where it's sharp. Excellent. The manual focus ring is electronic in operation and, as expected, utterly smooth in operation. Focusing is down to 0.35m, or 1.15 feet, at all focal lengths, for a maximum magnification of 0.39x. This is usefully close, but not down to macro distances. AF is driven by two synchronised motors and is fast, accurate and virtually silent. The manual focus ring is still active whilst using AF mode, so tweaks to the point of focus can be made.The good news is that the dual telescoping barrel on the Z 24-120mm f/4 S seems built to tight tolerances. I don’t notice any wobble at 120mm, even when I try to wiggle it around. That’s far from a given on lenses like this. NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 75mm, ISO 64, 1/30, f/7.1 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? I’ll start off by saying that wide-to-telephoto zooms are never going to be perfect optics. (Well, I shouldn’t say never– but they definitely aren’t there yet.) It takes a lot to design a lens that excels both at 24mm and at focal lengths over 100mm. And both of the two lenses I’m testing today perform way better than usual for such lenses. With that out of the way, let’s take a look at their image quality measurements from the lab: 1. Vignetting

Right frame edge 100%. If there's any difference in acuity here, it would be because I'm not perfectly parallel to the art, but there's really little difference I can see. Build quality is typical S-line. Polycarbonate external housing over metal frame interior, with weather sealing throughout, including a rubber ring at the lens mount. Interestingly, a lot of photographers will never notice this lens’s distortion, even if they shoot at 24mm and photograph something with straight lines, like architecture. That’s because Nikon automatically applies a distortion correction profile to the 24-120mm f/4 S by default – so, you always see straight lines when you’re composing the photo in-camera. On top of that, Nikon and Adobe apply a distortion correction profile to this lens in post-processing software, which cannot be disabled. The Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S has solid vignetting performance. As expected, its worst performance is at f/4 and 24mm. At most focal lengths, there’s just a hair more vignetting at infinity focus (IF) than close focus (CF), but it’s not enough of a difference to matter. Here’s the full vignetting chart, with the numbers measured in stops of light: The middle ring is the rather stiff zoom ring, which we hope will loosen up a little with use. It has focal lengths marked at 24, 28, 35, 50, 70, 85 and 120mm.If you don't have this card, if the card doesn't say "VALID IN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES" or the serial number on the card doesn't match the one on your lens exactly, you got ripped off with a gray market version from another country. All legitimate camera lenses come with printed warranty cards, even if you prefer to register online. (The serial number on the outside of the box doesn't have to match, but if it doesn't it means you bought from a shady dealer who took cameras lenses out of boxes and then resold these used lenses cameras as new.)

On DX cameras the liability of the 24-120mm f/4 S is obvious: no VR. That makes the 18-140mm f/3.5-6.3 VR DX lens the better choice for this focal range on the Z50 and Zfc. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included lots of examples below for your perusal. Sharpness This Z 24-120mm is a marvelous general-purpose lens. It's super-sharp, handles well, is reasonably priced and covers a perfect range for just about everything Vignetting: At 24mm the image circle area stays bright out through the top/bottom frame edge, leaving only the corners to darken, and they don't do so by a lot (~2 stops). Stopping down a stop makes the vignetting mostly ignorable except for the extreme corners, which always show some cutoff. The in-camera corrections, ironically, don't do a lot at 24mm at Normal value.Adding to the S-Line of superior lenses for the Nikon Z mirrorless system, we have the Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S zoom. This covers from a very useful ultra-wide 24mm to a moderately long telephoto 120mm, making this an ideal general-purpose optic. Be it landscapes, architecture or portraits this new lens should cover them all with ease. We have seen some spectacular lenses for the Z system, so let's couple this up with the 45MP Nikon Z7 II and see if Nikon is keeping up the high standards they have set for themselves, and we have come to expect. The differences at the long end of 70mm, 120mm, or 200mm are huge and could be the decisive factor for choosing one of these zoom lenses. Cropping a 70mm shot down to achieve the angle of view of 120mm would throw away 66% of the pixels, reducing a 45MP shot to a mere 15MP. A similar reduction happens when cropping a 120mm shot down to the angle of view of 200mm. With the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S lens set to its maximum aperture, there is some very obvious light fall-off in the corners, which you'll either need to correct in post-processing or stop-down the aperture to avoid.