Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in ... late September 2018

[armand]

https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/8470255105/nikon-z-14-30mm-f4-photos-by-jimmy-mcintyre/8128869592

Pretty impressive I would say. I assume that this is with lens corrections applied, but this is better in the corners than my Rodenstock 23mm...

Cheers,
Bernard

I wonder why they went with 14-30 instead of 14-28 or 14-35. Unless the 28 is sharper on the 14-30 vs a 14-28.

[Dan Wells]

Especially on a camera as well sealed as the Z, I'm always grateful for useful focal lengths covered by two adjacent zooms - for no reason other than reducing lens changes...

Jim Kasson has published tests of the 50mm f1.8 S against various competitors, and it comes a lot closer to the Otus than it has any right to at its size and price (and easily beats the Sony "Zeiss" 55mm f1.. He didn't have a Sony Zeiss 50mm f1.4...

[hogloff]

Especially on a camera as well sealed as the Z, I'm always grateful for useful focal lengths covered by two adjacent zooms - for no reason other than reducing lens changes...

Jim Kasson has published tests of the 50mm f1.8 S against various competitors, and it comes a lot closer to the Otus than it has any right to at its size and price (and easily beats the Sony "Zeiss" 55mm f1.. He didn't have a Sony Zeiss 50mm f1.4...

Beats in what ways? There are so many image attributes that just saying beats is very meaningless.

Beats in sharpness in the centre, mid frame, edges, corners and at what distances ( minimum, 8', infinity )
Beats in bokeh and again at what distances.
Beats in CA
Beats in edge falloff
Beats in colours
Beats in contrast
Etc.....

[Michael Erlewine]

Beats in what ways? There are so many image attributes that just saying beats is very meaningless.

Beats in sharpness in the centre, mid frame, edges, corners and at what distances ( minimum, 8', infinity )
Beats in bokeh and again at what distances.
Beats in CA
Beats in edge falloff
Beats in colours
Beats in contrast
Etc.....

I'm not going to argue it, but will simply state, IMO I have both lenses. the 50mm f/1.8 Sand the Zeiss Otus 55mm and although the Z7 lens is pretty good, it is not as good or better than the Otus 55mm. That my experience. I like them both, but they are not equal.

[faberryman]

I'm not going to argue it, but will simply state, IMO I have both lenses. the 50mm f/1.8 Sand the Zeiss Otus 55mm and although the Z7 lens is pretty good, it is not as good or better than the Otus 55mm. That my experience. I like them both, but they are not equal.

What? With that large throat diameter the S lens should be the best. At least that is what Nikon is touting. It's suppose to be a new age in optics.

[Telecaster]

I take all IBIS/IS/ETC ratings with a big fat grain of salt. The results are to a great extent user dependent. How a particular system performs with me operating it…that's what I care about. I can only find that out by taking a bunch o' photos.

-Dave-

[Hulyss]

Many ( a lot !!) don't even know that the operator need to wait till the image is stabilised before pressing the release. So I gess that many photographers find IBIS disapointing because they don't even know there is a particular modus operandi.

[Michael Erlewine]

What? With that large throat diameter the S lens should be the best. At least that is what Nikon is touting. It's suppose to be a new age in optics.

I understand the physics. I expect the the new Noct 0.95 may be an Otus, but Nikon did not put enough correction in the 50mm S, even though it is a nice lens. Just my opinion from testing both in the work I do..

[BernardLanguillier]

What? With that large throat diameter the S lens should be the best. At least that is what Nikon is touting. It's suppose to be a new age in optics.

The 50mm f1.8 S is 5 times cheaper, twice lighter and 1.4 times smaller than the Otus 55mm f1.4. Granted it is 2/3 stop slower but it’s AF and better weather sealed.

How can you be not impressed by its level of performance and also claim an objective view on this?

Cheers,
Bernard

[Dan Wells]

Nobody (except people trying to put up a straw man) has ever said "better than an Otus". What Jim Kasson said is "much better than the comparably sized and priced Sony 55mm f1.8, and relatively close to the Otus".

Bernard correctly makes the point that it is a far more convenient lens than an Otus.

There are some applications where the convenience doesn't matter at all, and if you have such an application and a very high budget, the Otus is still the best ~50mm there is.

I'd never buy an Otus (or the Noct) due to size, weight and sealing. If I could afford one, I'd buy the two Nikkor primes and the 14-30 to go with my present 24-70, then add either a PC Nikkor or two or the 500mm PF - two exotics I'd love to have.

My next lens is certainly the 14-30, which I really want to have in hand before hiking season.  The positive reviews of the 50 are causing to be much more interested in it than I usually am in primes that duplicate a good zoom I already own (I don't tend to do shallow DOF terribly often)

[kers]

I'm not going to argue it, but will simply state, IMO I have both lenses. the 50mm f/1.8 Sand the Zeiss Otus 55mm and although the Z7 lens is pretty good, it is not as good or better than the Otus 55mm. That my experience. I like them both, but they are not equal.

It seems more sensible to compare the upcoming Nikkor  .95 58mm S  against the Zeiss Otus 1.4 55mm;
both meant to be state of the art, both expensive, heavy, big and manual focussed.
( nikons lens will be better weather sealed)

[Michael Erlewine]

It seems more sensible to compare the upcoming Nikkor  .95 58mm S  against the Zeiss Otus 1.4 55mm;
both meant to be state of the art, both expensive, heavy, big and manual focussed.
( nikons lens will be better weather sealed)

I agree, it does and I will be doing that, but I expect (unless Nikon screws up) for the New Noct to be of Otus quality or higher, higher being some special image-quality. Nikon knows how to do this. I have the APO El Nikkor 105mm lens and it is Otus quality and has a very special IQ. I just can't compare the Otus to the 50mm S f/1.8 without a little embarrassment. The 50mm f/1.8 is a wonderful lens in its own right. Just because the Otus is IMO better corrected does not disparage the Z lens. It's really good IMO too, just not THAT good.

[BJL]

In the new thread https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?action=post;quote=1089825;topic=128593.0;last_msg=1089825

re: The 1600 reply topic...."Nikon's new mirrorless system, coming in...late September 2018".   How about closing this thread and whenever anyone has a specific topic related to this camera, they start a New Topic built for that subject.  I stopped reading this thread about 3 months ago because it was so rambling and covered too many topics.  And when it is broad with so many replies, it is very hard to try to find specific topic info that may be buried within it. ...

Brad Smith makes the suggestion that this thread has become way too long and sprawling, and it would be better to close this one and invite new threads on more specific topics.

That makes sense to me; this has become almost an entire forum for "35mm format EVF cameras" in a single thread.
And as the starter of that thread, I could close it to new posts.
But I am asking opinions of others in this thread before I decide whether to do so; both here and in Brad's thread.

So what do you think, Bernard et al? Time to move on to new threads?

[BernardLanguillier]

Surprisingly, this isn’t my thread, but either way is fine with me. 😀

Cheers,
Bernard

[BJL]

Every one who commented seems fine with retiring this thread, so I will: off you go and start some more specific ones for the numerous themes being discussed here.