new zoom-lens from nikon?

[Fons Baerken]

new zoom-lens from nikon

https://www.nikonusa.com/p/nikkor-z-24-105mm-f4-71/20132/overview

[Birna Rørslett]

Low weight <==> f/7.1 on the long end. A lens for sunny trips, perhaps.

I did notice Nikon claims it can do decent close-ups to 0.5X life-size.

[MEPER]

I observed the lens has 18 lens elements and many of those are ED-glass.
The performance could be very good at a low price. 

[David H. Hartman]

f/7.1 doesn't cut it for me at 105mm. It's a lens for someone else but it's good Nikon is offering a wide selection of lenses. Also if it's an internal focus lenses the effective focal length (angle of view) will be less than 105mm, e.g. my old favorite 105/2.4 AI/AIS.

Dave

[Birna Rørslett]

I observed the lens has 18 lens elements and many of those are ED-glass.
The performance could be very good at a low price.

You must have another lens in mind? Nikon says 12 elements, 1 of which is ED. Two are aspherical. The MTF graphs might indicate  decent performance, but hardly stellar.

[MEPER]

Ok, I think there is an error at the Danish Nikon.dk web.
https://www.nikon.dk/da_DK/product/lenses/mirrorless/nikkor-z-24-105mm-f4-7.1

At Technical specifications this text is shown everywhere. They will probably correct it soon:
18 elementer i 13 grupper (herunder 3 ED-elementer, 1 asfærisk ED-element, 4 asfæriske elementer og elementer med mesoamorf belægning og en flourbelægning på forreste og bageste linseelement)

I was also very positive surprised by this advanced optical formular.

[Birna Rørslett]

The official Nikon site says for the 24-105/4-7.1:

Lens construction: 12 elements in 10 groups (including 1 ED glass and 2 aspherical lens elements)


However, the recently launched NIKKOR Z 28-135mm f/4 PZ is specifed as:

18 elements in 13 groups (including 3 ED elements, 1 aspherical ED element, 4 aspherical elements, and elements with Meso Amorphous Coat, and fluorine Coat)


Conclusion: Nikon DK missed the mark by more than a mile

[MEPER]

Ok, then I go with the 28-135/4 :-)
Especially if the size, weight and price is the same as the 24-105 :-)
I just looked it up and can see it is "next level" and I have the 24-70/4S which for me is a very nice lens.
As standalone lens the 24-70/4S cost some money but it was a kit-lens and many see kit-lenses as "junk" so they sell them cheap.
2-300 Euros for a mint one is possible if you can accept it comes in a white cardboard box instead of the usually Black and Yellow box.

[Les Olson]

Also if it's an internal focus lenses the effective focal length (angle of view) will be less than 105mm
Dave

The CIPA standard is that the difference between nominated and actual focal length at infinity must be within 5%. If you look at Bill Claff's Optical Bench Hub you will see that the wide ends of zooms are consistently less wide and the long ends less long than the nominal focal lengths. The 24-120/4, eg, is actually 24.7 (= +3% discrepancy) and 116.5 (= -3% discrepancy); the 70-200/2.8 is actually 71.5 to 196. The 24-105 is not on the site (and may not be, because the data comes from published patents) but it would be remarkable if the pattern was not maintained. 

Shortening of focal lengths at short focus distances = focus breathing is a different matter.

The angle of view is the angle the chief ray (the off-axis ray that crosses the aperture on the axis) makes with the axis in object space. The formula that the tangent of the half angle of view = half image diameter / focal length applies only if the pupil magnification is unity, so IRL lenses with the same focal length can have different angles of view, the angle of view can vary with focus distance, and the relationship between focal length and angle of view will usually vary across a zoom range.

[pluton]

I get nervous with f/4 as a maximum aperture.  f/7.1 would be too much to contemplate.  Curiously, f/2.8 seems fine for most things.

[Akira]

Strangely, there is no info on the Japanese official Nikon website.  The zoom might be only for certain areas on the globe.