Having had lots of experience with the Z-mount Nikkors now, and as part of my year-end site updating (now basically complete), I made a full pass through my reviews—particularly ratings—tweaking some of them a bit. My overall satisfaction with a number of lenses has changed just a bit with continued use.
Better
Lenses that I like more now than when I first reviewed them:
- 50mm f/2.8 MC — This little lens isn't a top performer, but I'm liking it more over time, particularly since it's easy to stuff into a bag, just in case. I'm finding more and more reasons to take it out of the bag.
- 14-30mm f/4 S — I'm still not 100% comfortable with the absolute corners, which will get munged due to the distortion correction necessary on this lens, but generally for the types of uses I make of this lens, that just never really shows up in my images.
- 17-28mm f/2.8 — I liked this lens in my review, and it still is growing on me. Like the previous lens, you need to be careful about corner usage, but the central area is going to be excellent.
- 24-120mm f/4 S — I found it solid in my review, and it's continued to perform for me. I've gotten to the point where I simply don't care about its small deficiencies.
- 400mm f/4.5 VR S — The joy of carrying just overcomes that stop-and-a-third extra exposure necessary. For most of my uses, the change in aperture from my f/2.8 just doesn't show up as busier backgrounds, at least not at the level I'd be concerned with.
Worse
A few lenses seem to be languishing in my use, and it's because I'm no longer enamored by them:
- 35mm f/1.8 S — One of the first three lenses for the Z-mount, it just seems a little blah for its size now. I keep finding that at around that focal length, I'm opting for the far smaller 40mm f/2 more often, even though it just doesn't hold up in the corners as well.
- 24-70mm f/4 S — Another of those first three lenses. It's still one of the strongest kit lenses you can get on any system at this focal range, but my use of the 24-120mm f/4 S shows that the modest focal range of the kit lens dulls my opinion of this original zoom somewhat.
- 24-200mm f/4-6.3 — As Nikon keeps knocking Nikkors out of the park (and some off the wall), this lens just keeps coming up short for me. As a superzoom, it is probably better than most expect, but it's a superzoom, and has all the issues that get intermixed with trying to extend to such a huge focal range. If you're buying it for 200mm, I'd say no these days; you have better options. With the 24-120mm as your primary zoom, get a 70-180mm f/2.8 at some point to give you the longer telephoto range. You'll see the difference at 180mm almost immediately.
- 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S — I've specifically knocked this lens down from Highly Recommended to just Recommended. Yeah, that's probably a surprise to most of you. But the 180-600mm pretty much obliterated it at the long end when you look at price/performance at 180-400mm. I'm down to now saying that the 100-400mm belongs in the three-lens, slower aperture kit (e.g. 14-30mm f/4 S, 24-120mm f/4 S, and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S; see below). That set takes you through a much more than adequate 14-400mm range in about the best combo you can find.
Kits
So, speaking of kits, here's what I now tend to say make solid choices as a base zoom kit:
- Consumer zoom trio: 17-28mm f/2.8, 24-70mm f/4, and 70-180mm f/2.8. Way more competent than you'd expect, and without breaking the bank.
- Middle zoom trio: 14-30mm f/4 S, 24-120mm f/4 S, and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S. Competency defined.
- Pro zoom trio: still comprises the three f/2.8 S lenses: 14-24mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm. Nothing matches them from corner to corner from 14mm to 200mm, but you pay a price and a weight penalty for that.
You can mix and match if you want, but I find that abilities within each of those three trios are extremely well matched, meaning that you don't have to think about anything moving from one lens to another.
