Nikon Z6/7 mirrorless system

[Michael Erlewine]

Yes, it is.

I am wondering if you would comment on this thought:

With the Z7, I have the 24-70 S and am getting the 50mm S today... and am considering the 35mm S lens as well.

No, these lenses don’t seem to measure up to the best lenses I have. Like you, I have a lot of great lenses, especially “APO” lenses, whatever we can agree they are. I go by what I see, etc.

Yet, this new generation of Z7 native lenses, while not at the level of the best lenses in my collection, are pretty darned good and they are native and not so big or heavy. And they seem well corrected and sharp.

It occurs to me that I might end up using them because they are convenient and don’t seem to constantly irritate me (CA, etc.) like so many lenses do.

I could see myself actually using these lenses quite a bit or even a lot. And this is just the opening salvo. What’s to stop other companies (like Zeiss, etc.) from making lenses that fit the Z7 and take advantage of this new mount?

I never thought (up to now) that any of this mirrorless stuff (of which I have tried most of them) would budge me from where I stand, but, you know, it just might do that.

I am especially interested in the forthcoming NOCT S lens, which as a manual lens which is very fast and (hopefully) very, very well corrected. That is a lens I could use everyday and it is native to the Z7. Your thoughts, if you have time.

[Birna Rørslett]

I fear using the native Z-lenses in your case will be limited by the lack of suitable extension.

However, seeing that an extension ring only needs pass-through contacts, I am now looking into the opportunity to build one or two myself. I only need a few additional spare parts (camera mount, baffle and contact pins) that my helpful Nikon contact might assist me with.

[Michael Erlewine]

I fear using the native Z-lenses in your case will be limited by the lack of suitable extension.

However, seeing that an extension ring only needs pass-through contacts, I am now looking into the opportunity to build one or two myself. I only need a few additional spare parts (camera mount, baffle and contact pins) that my helpful Nikon contact might assist me with.

I agree with you and am looking for the same thing. I received my 50mm S lens today and It is very nice. I have to get used to the fly-by-wire. Other than that, it looks great, especially for travelling which I believe I will start to do more of.

[Hugh_3170]

Perhaps a business opportunity to make and sell stongly made Z extension tubes with contacts?

(And if you do, for goodness sake, make the tube portion of metal!  )

 Rather sadly Nikon have for quite some time now neglected the updating of the accessories side of their product line up - I am thinking of bellows, extension tubes, high quality diopter lenses etc

In the meantime my PB4 soldiers on and I still occassionally buy K-Ring and PK and PN-11 tubes when they sometimes come on Ebay at affordable prices.

I fear using the native Z-lenses in your case will be limited by the lack of suitable extension.

However, seeing that an extension ring only needs pass-through contacts, I am now looking into the opportunity to build one or two myself. I only need a few additional spare parts (camera mount, baffle and contact pins) that my helpful Nikon contact might assist me with.

[gryphon1911]

Just wanted to add this little tidbit.  I'm over 1000 shots on the Z 6 current battery.  Went through a portrait shot, a 30 minute show and walking around taking pictures at a lantern festival.  All outside and in average temps of about 30F.

Honestly, I think CIPA needs to re-evaluate their battery testing procedures for mirrorless cameras.  Even years ago with my Fuji and Olympus cameras, I got way more shots than per charge than the CIPA numbers showed. 

I know they do a worst case scenario kind of thing, but I was sitting in the cold, and for 30 minutes I was using full C-AF and continuous high drive mode along with everything else, plus a ton of image review.

It's not new news, but thought others would be interested in the information.

I have some third party batteries, and they do not fair as well as the en-el15a or b Nikon batteries, but even those are not even close to the low standard number published.

I've said for years that I think mirrorless cameras should be measured against a powered on time.

I find with the Olympus em1 Mark 2, that just being on drained the battery, so if I shut down completely between lulls in shooting that the battery life was much improved and this is similar to what I find with the Z 6.

Just some of my non scientific observations.  Hope you find them useful.

[Birna Rørslett]

These battery numbers mean little as photographers develop their own individual patterns of usage, ambient temperatures vary,  and hence  arrive at vastly different figures. For example, so far I have attained around 180-220 exposures per charge (lowest on the older EL-15a). Compared to my Df, it's about 40% less. The conclusion is I need to carry more spares for the Z cameras. I got 2 extra batteries for each camera and that should suffice for my own work.

[Birna Rørslett]

Work pace slows down towards the end of the year. All required botany articles are submitted to the Ministry of the Environmental and I even got the final payment as well. Thus, time to enjoy music,reading, friendship, and some camera experimenting

Here is the final version of the M42 adapter for the Z cameras. Many solutions are feasible and I have tried several of them, before eventually making the adapter as thin and as simple as possible.

The required parts of the adapter (plus the M42>39 step ring and the 55/1.2 Nikkor-O) are shown below. The making of the adapter is the simple matter of trimming the M42 mounting bracket (from an old Petri M42 kit) so it fits inside the Z lens mount, adding epoxy glue, and cure for 40 minutes at 100C in the oven to ensure maximum binding strength. Then, add any suitable M42 helicoid and one is ready to explore any M42 (or m39) lens on the Z camera.

I had the famous Nikkor-O 55mm f/1.2 in mind so this is the lens I experimented with. It will focus to infinity with ease provided the helicoid is short enough (approx. 17mm will do with the helicoid fully closed), and only length of the expanded helicoid plus any extension tubes defines the near limit.

The examples below, taken with the Z6 and the lens set to f/1.2, illustrate the huge focusing range available for the 55/1.2 Nikkor-O. Towards infinity the image is sharp only on-axis, as expected, and there is visible vignetting in the corners. Up close the sharpness extends across the frame and corner vignetting is minimised.

Happy shooting

[Michael Erlewine]

Work pace slows down towards the end of the year. All required botany articles are submitted to the Ministry of the Environmental and I even got the final payment as well. Thus, time to enjoy music,reading, friendship, and some camera experimenting

Here is the final version of the M42 adapter for the Z cameras. Many solutions are feasible and I have tried several of them, before eventually making the adapter as thin and as simple as possible.

The required parts of the adapter (plus the M42>39 step ring and the 55/1.2 Nikkor-O) are shown below. The making of the adapter is the simple matter of trimming the M42 mounting bracket (from an old Petri M42 kit) so it fits inside the Z lens mount, adding epoxy glue, and cure for 40 minutes at 100C in the oven to ensure maximum binding strength. Then, add any suitable M42 helicoid and one is ready to explore any M42 (or m39) lens on the Z camera.

I had the famous Nikkor-O 55mm f/1.2 in mind so this is the lens I experimented with. It will focus to infinity with ease provided the helicoid is short enough (approx. 17mm will do with the helicoid fully closed), and only length of the expanded helicoid plus any extension tubes defines the near limit.

The examples below, taken with the Z6 and the lens set to f/1.2, illustrate the huge focusing range available for the 55/1.2 Nikkor-O. Towards infinity the image is sharp only on-axis, as expected, and there is visible vignetting in the corners. Up close the sharpness extends across the frame and corner vignetting is minimised.

Happy shooting

That's nice, of course. I don't have any very small helicoids, but I will look. Here is a question for you:

I believe the ideal magnification ratio is !:5 for the CRT lens. It seems this wonderful lens is not-so-sharp outside of that range, almost disappointing to see this lens turn ordinary. I also have a Z7 M42 adapter, which I have not played with. What lenses would you suggest for that?

P.S. I finally picked up a used Burzynski Ball head. It is in slightly rough shape, but can be cleaned up. I am tiring of my Arca C1 Cube heads, mainly because of the knob to tilt the whole head , which has never been solid (it's springy), this geared head's worst feature, IMO. I am hoping the Burzynski will be lower down and more stable. I may put it on one of my Sachtlers or RSS tripods. For the kind of stuff I do, I need solid, stable, and more solid.

[Birna Rørslett]

The 55/1.2 CRT will do pretty well outside the optimal range 1:4 ~1:5 so consider 1:2 to to 1:20 as the likely workable magnification for close-up purposes. Some cropping might be required in particular for the smallest magnifications, as vignetting etc. will creep in.

It is true the lens shows bad performance towards infinity, which is of course not to be held against it as the optics never were computed for such distant range. Only on-axis we observe vestiges of the familiar high-quality rendition. However, I think it can be used well outside the close-up range for portraits etc. if  the inevitable off-axis decline in image performance can be made part of the composition. Its use for landscapes will be an acquired taste to put it mildly

For the M42-Z adapter, any M42 screw mount lens by definition can be attached, but unless it has its own focusing arrangement, some kind of helicoid or bellows device must be included.

[Birna Rørslett]

The Z6 handles high contrasts very well. This was taken earlier today when I visited my parents' grave with my children. Straight into the light and the shaded headstone on the left hand side still has a lot of detail despite being so dark.

Z6, 35/1.8s at f/4.5, 1/60 sec, 1600 ISO

[Birna Rørslett]

One of the underlying reasons for my piqued interest in the Z range was the potential of using my old Nikkor RF (S-mount) from the '50s on these cameras. A true revival of the rangefinder items in the digital era. I tried first with the RF Nikkors on a Sony A7-series and disliked the camera intensively thus sold it off after merely 3 months. Hiatus then until the Z range was launched.

I now have a nicely finished Nikon S(RF) to Nikon Z adapter with external bayonet for most of my ancient Nikkors. Nearly all of the 50mm lenses of that era relied on using the built-in internal helicoid of the S cameras. I do have an adapter to allow focusing such lenses on the Z bodies, however I have not completed the adapter yet as there still remains some focus fine-tuning before I'm satisfied.

Below is a comparison side-by-side view of two 35 mm lenses for Nikons. One is the W-Nikkor 35/1.8 from the late '50s, the other of course the newest design 35/1.8 S-Line Nikkor from 2018. They are 60 years apart along the optical development scale -- a massive change in design and appearance.

[Birna Rørslett]

Let me be crystal clear: the newer optics are superior to the old. Period. That, however, shall not entail the older lenses are useless. Far from it. They are surprisingly good in many cases and have a character of their own often lacking from today's super-corrected computerised designs.

Taking the 35 mm Nikkors of the previous post as an example, here are full frame images at f/1.8 (wide open) and f/5.6 (around the peak performance of each lens). Z6 on tripod, 1600 ISO. Camera is stationary between the test series.

First comparison, f/1.8 Old and New.

Second, f/5.6 Old and New.

I was positively surprised how good the vintage 35mm  really was, in particular closed down. The new lens excels in low vignetting and evenness of sharpnes across the frame even wide open, but the difference at f/5.6 is remarkably small.

[pluton]

Thank you Birna, for allowing us to follow along with your explorations.  It seems that, at least in this case, what was a good lens then is still a good lens now.

[Hugh_3170]

Thank you for sharing your findings on the Z-Cameras and the modern Z 35mm f/1.8 and its very old forebear, the rangefinder 35mm f/2.8.

In respect of the older rangefinder lens, its rearmost optical lements are never-the-less closer to the film/sensor plane than those of the F-Mount 35mm f/2.8 lenses which then leads me to firstly ask if you have had a chance to compare an F-mount 35mm f/2.8 lens to the new Z-mount 35mm lens? 

Or maybe the latest FX F-Mount lens, the 35mm f/1.8G which presumably has the latest design technologies, glasses, and coatings (which of course the Z-Mount 35mm lens has)?

Thanks.

[Birna Rørslett]

Actually, it was the rangefinder lens W-Nikkor 35 mm f/1.8. That line-up did not have an f/2.8 model amongst the 35mm lenses. I have the f/2.5 and f/3.5 versions as well, but always had a soft spot for the f/1.8 version.

I don't own any modern 35/1.8 in F-mount, but there are f/1.4 (AIS and AFS) or f/2 models (AI, AIS) if I would feel the urge to do more testing. However, the main point with the reported comparison was to assess the very old rangefinder model against its  Z-mount incarnation. The handling of the F-mount 35mm lenses with the FTZ is not as nice and the appearance not as inconspicuous as the rangefinder 35/1.8 with its corresponding Z-mount adapter.