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Good afternoon everybody!
Since Nikon stepped a year and a half ago into mirrorless with the release of the Z6 and Z7 with only 2 available lenses and further relying on their outstanding FTZ adapter, they try to close the gap with the former ML market leaders asap...
And they seem to succeed.
A major achievement in their overtaking race was the release of firmware 3.0, which turned the initial, -sometimes unjustified-, overly critisized Z'AF performance into a very reliable and fast autofocusing camera with a total re designed tracking mode.
Even though the FTZ adapter is doing a wonderful job, the cry for (much) more native Z glass was loud, And also there Nikon responds with regular releases of new Z glass with nothing less than exceptional optical performance.
I am very happy about this evolution because I was one of the very early adopters, with both Z6 & Z7 to replace my D4, D850 & D500....
Through a contact of mine I have the opportunity to test toroughly both the Z 70-200 F2.8 S and the Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR .... I test both lenses on my Z6 & Z7.
You can read my findings with the Z 70-200 f2.8 VR S
here.
When I first mounted the NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR on one of my Z bodies I immediatly compared with the fabulous NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S.
When I turned the aperture, at 70 mm the Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR already shows F6.0 vs F4 (over the whole range from 24 until70mm) for the NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S. Bummer...
It makes me believe that this allround lens suits better on the Z6 than on the Z7 while the Z6 has exceptional high iso performance, perfectly useable even at iso 25600 for high quality travel memories...
The NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR is a lightweight travel companion, focusing silent, fast and accurate, even in lower light. Nice.
It can deliver VERY sharp images, even wide open and, until now, I could not find any optical weaknesses.
Some images:
All images are coming as a straight coversion from NEF in Nikon capture NX-D as if they were SOOC with no PP with exception of ©.
In my camera settings NR is turned OFF.
(Z7/iso 640/ F6.3/ 1/640 sec)
(Z6/iso 2500/ F6.3/ 1/2000 sec)
The NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR for close ups:
The scene:
and a 100% crop:
(Z7/iso 2500/ F9/ 1/3200 sec)
AF locking and focus accuracy in rather tricky AF circumstances:
The scene and AF point:
and a 100% crop of the AF area:
(Z7/iso 720/ F6.3/ 1/1250 sec)
You can read my full user review on my website
here.
Thanks and kindest regrds,
Stany
