Bridgeport Shop Window at Night, October 2018, 8:01 P.M. Nikon Z7, Nikon 24-70mm f/4 Z at 32mm, f/4 hand-held at 1/30 at Auto ISO 18,000, Perfectly Clear v3.6. bigger.

Lastly, focus by wire allows camera manufacturers to change the “focus ring” to allow more adjustments than just focus (which is why it is actually called a “Control Ring”). Specifically, you can make the control ring adjust other camera settings such as aperture and exposure compensation, or power aperture in video mode. Some other Nikon Z-series lenses in the future will offer even more customization options via programmable buttons. NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S @ 70mm, ISO 64, 1/8, f/11.0 Red Maple, Yosemite Valley, October 2018, 12:19 P.M. Nikon Z7, Nikon 24-70mm f/4 Z at 70mm, f/4 hand-held at 1/200 at Auto ISO 64, Perfectly Clear v3.6. bigger or full-resolution. Externally, there’s a wide rubber zoom ring and a narrow, ribbed metal collar used by default for manual focus; however, it is customizable and can be set to adjust aperture values or exposure compensation. As you can see, this is a very strong lens. It looks like the sweet spot of the lens is at f/5.6 for landscape and architecture photography, although when shooting at longer focal lengths, you might want to stop down between f/5.6 and f/8 to get the best results. When photographing people, you don’t need to stop the lens down at all – this is one of the sharpest zoom lenses out there in terms of its wide open performance in the center. To understand how good this lens is, you really need to look at the comparisons with other Nikon F-mount lenses. Lens Construction

Although not a macro lens, the 24-70mm f/4 S has an impressive maximum reproduction ratio of 1:3.33. This means that you can fill the entire uncropped photo with something as small as 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) across. You’ll want to zoom in to 70mm for peak macro capabilities. Take a look at the samples below, both taken at the lens’s closest focus distance: NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S @ 70mm, ISO 200, 1/320, f/4.0 NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S @ 70mm, ISO 800, 1/800, f/5.6

Nano coating is on at least one element (along with the usual Super Integrated Coatings), and the front element is fluorine coated to reject water and dust. The lens has a 72mm filter thread. Nikon claims "extensively sealed against dust and moisture," and this seems to be accurate. The supplied HB-85 lens hood is a bayonet type, with distinct petaling of the sides to accommodate the wide 24mm position. Inside we have 7 rounded aperture blades. The lens stops down to f/22. Now the moment of truth! Which lens is sharper in the shared zoom range from 24mm to 70mm? I’ve heard the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S described as “the same as the Z 24-70mm f/4 S, just with more reach.” Let’s see if that description holds true in terms of sharpness. Here are both lenses at 24mm:What did I do? Well, I switched to a different lens altogether – the Nikon Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR! For my needs as a landscape photographer who shoots at f/8 through f/16 most of the time, all these lenses are good performers anyway. (Although for critical sharpness, both the Z 24-70mm f/4 S and Z 24-120mm f/4 S clearly beat the 24-200mm superzoom.) NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S @ 39mm, ISO 64, 4 seconds, f/11.0 NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 120mm, ISO 64, 1/160, f/8.0 Just grab the electronic focus ring at any time for instant manual-focus override. It works very well, much better than Sony.

The 24-70mm f/4 S is thoroughly weather-sealed. Nikon’s promotional images in its NIKKOR Z Brochure show six separate rubber rings, covering the front element, rear mount, telescoping barrel, zoom ring, and focus ring. There is also a separate weather seal underneath the A/M switch. In short, all the moving parts on this lens have weather sealing. Lateral fringing occurs in the focus plane on both sides of high-contrast edges, usually as cyan and magenta fringing, so the above graph displays two values per lens. If a lens is perfectly corrected, both values would be at 0µ (indicated by the grey horizontal line in the center of the graph). Geometric distortion This is quite an impressive performance. The images above range from two to six stops of image stabilization performance compared to the standard “1/focal length” rule. Field CurvatureTo me, the main problem is that it isn’t possible to access the non-corrected RAW file in Lightroom at all (at least through ordinary means). How often have you taken a photo with just a slight error in composition, where you wish you could include just a hair more information on one side of the crop or another? Lightroom users, as well as Nikon Capture NX users, may never realize that the underlying RAW photo actually held that data all along. Even though the distortion looks unsavory in certain cases, I would prefer at least the option to disable corrections, as has been the case with Lightroom and Nikon cameras in the past. Chromatic Aberration

These caveats aside, this 24-70 is ultra-ultra sharp, especially wide-open at f/4 where lenses are at their softest. I can see only the very faintest spherochromatism in this lens, and only if I go out of my way to see it. There is relatively high vignetting on the 24-70mm f/4 S, particularly at 24mm, but also at 70mm when focused at infinity. Here is a chart showing the stops of vignetting at each focal length and aperture, both close focus (CF) and infinity focus (IF): But the basic idea is that the two lenses are about the same price. Which one is the better value? To me, the 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR stands out in this comparison. No, it doesn’t have the nice, constant f/4 maximum aperture. But it is only a bit worse optically, while covering far more focal lengths than the 24-70mm f/4 S. For most genres of photography, it will make a bigger difference to be able to shoot at 200mm than to have a little more corner sharpness wide open! This lens’s transmission is notable for its close-to F-stop values: the 4 T-Stop rating is averaged, so as always, it’s worth looking at our graph to see how that changes through the focal range. Image quality compared to its competitors

Intro

What’s the takeaway here? Well, the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/4 S is definitely the sharper lens, but not by as much as you may be expecting. The difference at 24mm f/4 in the corners is probably the biggest difference you’ll see. As you zoom in and stop down your aperture, the differences become harder to see. Bridgeport Inn at Night, October 2018, 7:59 P.M. Nikon Z7, Nikon 24-70mm f/4 Z at 24mm, f/4 at 1/25 hand-held at Auto ISO 1,250, Snapseed and Perfectly Clear v3.6. bigger. Weird Wood, October 2018, 3:21 P.M. Nikon Z7, Nikon 24-70mm f/4 Z at 41mm, f/8 hand-held at 1/30 at Auto ISO 64, Perfectly Clear v3.6. bigger or full-resolution. NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S @ 24mm, ISO 3200, 1/13, f/4.0 NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S @ 45mm, ISO 64, 1/10, f/6.3 The Z6/Z7 body and the 24-70mm f/4 make for a very compact full frame solution. A fraction bigger than the Sony alternative, but as you'll discover later in this review, much more than a fraction better.