Playing with my new 20mm f/1.8S lens for the Z-mount

[Macro_Cosmos]

I'm loving this lens. Always regretted selling the 20mm F1.8G and never found myself a copy at a reasonable price.
Mine went for a whopping $450 AUD on eBay, which is like $310 USD. Could imagine how sad I was.

Been following this lens ever since it was announced, and Nikon was boasting about how the coma is well corrected. Saw some early reviews and I was already sold. Then comes a silly virus. It has been several months here in Sydney for the lens to show up at very high prices, and it's still out of stock pretty much nation wide.

So I decided to take Steve Perry's advice and called up several camera stores. I found one listed on ebay by some obscure "store" located in a mountain, which however is listed as an official Nikon distributor. Rang up the guy through a number I found through my search engine. The seller was incredibly nice, gave me the expected discount of 10% since we're cutting ebay out, he also offered me free express postage. Somehow he messed up the dedicated coupon, but let it go anyway even after I asked about it. I ended up paying $1500 AUD (US$1033) for the lens shipped, it was also the last copy! Destiny I guess.

This is such a lovely lens. It's really big, a lot larger and heavier than the 20mm F/1.8G. The G version feels like a lens cap when coupled with a D-SLR. The balance of the S-line version on my Z6 is almost perfect.

Thanks to the Queen, the lens landed on Tuesday rather than Monday. I headed out and straight up Sydney Tower to get some shots. Lots of annoying but necessary measures to prevent that silly virus from spreading, I salute the workers. Thankfully, the venue isn't nearly as packed as usual. I suppose the time slot system worked out nicely.

Anyhow, enough (unnecessary) backstory, here's the 2 processed shots. I'm no landscape/cityscape expert, but I quite like the results. Even through the thick glass and my light pollution filter, the lens did really well. My 24mm PC-E would have been devastated. I did take a sample photo to see if the lens lives up to Nikon's claim of coma suppression, but I won't include them. The photo was shot through thick glass and a filter, not a good test. However, from what I can see, the performance is incredible. Coma levels are very well controlled, the 20mm G version is unfortunately no match here, from my experience. No geese or ducks flying around the edges.

1600px photos. Visit my flickr for the usual stuff I do (microscopy)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcmicroscopy/with/49995737751/




Here's a 100%, I did downscale to 12MP.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49995122003_8d3d98e9c6_o.jpg
And here's the 24mm PC-E. Not apples to apples, body is a D810 too.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48481892896_0f1ce79645_o.jpg

You can see how well the 20mm S-line holds up, yet how detrimental the thick glass is to both lenses. There's some weirdness that becomes obvious when zoomed in.

I have several more to edit. I also plan on exploiting the lens' ability to focus very close to produce some macro-landscape like photos. When the rain stops and moon hides, I'll be heading out into some no-where places away from the biggest light polluter in the continent and enjoy from astrolandscapes fun! Love to see how the coma is controlled. I'll keep this post updated. 

[Hugh_3170]

Impressive, especially given the window glass.

You have tempted me in respect of the 20mm S. 

[Roland Vink]

The review at camera labs is generally positive but they like the Sony lens better. Sample variation, or is the the Nikkor designed with different goals?

But it's a bit soft in the FX corners especially at longer distances like landscape shots and longitudinal CAs occasionally rear their ugly head. Sony's FE 20mm f1.8 GM is proof that a modern lens design can be smaller and produce better corner sharpness and less loCA

https://www.cameralabs.com/nikon-z-20mm-f1-8-s-review/

[Wally]

Beautiful! Reminds me of a great time last year
I do prefer the first one.This lens is high on my GAS.

[Macro_Cosmos]

The review at camera labs is generally positive but they like the Sony lens better. Sample variation, or is the the Nikkor designed with different goals?
https://www.cameralabs.com/nikon-z-20mm-f1-8-s-review/

Not sure how their test is done, did the author use an a7r4? 60MP is considerably more than 45, however Kasson's tests show that the Sony is a bit sharper in the middle wide open. This won't affect shooting though, no one take photos of Siemens stars and similar targets all the time.
https://blog.kasson.com/nikon-z6-7/sony-20-1-8-g-20-1-8-nikkor-s-on-nikon-z7/

Looking at Cameralabs' review for both lenses, the Nikon has better coma control. CA indeed looks ugly, I'll see if I can reproduce those results.

[Macro_Cosmos]

  Astro time, stayed in a graveyard all night!


The (lack of) coma performance of this lens is absolutely stunning, it's orders above Nikon's G version. Wasn't afraid to open up that iris and let all the light and other spooky stuff in.
Haida light pollution filter, 10 images stacked for the sky.

[chris dees]

Some pretty amazing pics!
I’m waiting for Nikon’s summer discount to get this lens. 

[Frank Fremerey]

I guess these are the first Sydney pictures where I cannot consciously see the opara house ;-)

I love the 1.8/20G and have not though about the S-Version yet --- good to know it is a great option ...

[Hugh_3170]

It is in the first reply, second image.

[Macro_Cosmos]

I guess these are the first Sydney pictures where I cannot consciously see the opara house ;-)

I love the 1.8/20G and have not though about the S-Version yet --- good to know it is a great option ...

You can see the back in the second image 

Graveyard pic was outside of (greater) Sydney already.

[Erik Lund]

Indeed the stars look really well depicted but the overall image looks a bit strange, like a composite of different layers of focus stacking

[Birna Rørslett]

"... 60MP is considerably more than 45 ..."  really ?? The difference is just 15% (planar).

[Macro_Cosmos]

Indeed the stars look really well depicted but the overall image looks a bit strange, like a composite of different layers of focus stacking

Yep, there's obvious banding. I ticked vignette removal and PS somehow desaturated everything. Unticking it shows the weird banding. It was a vertical shot and I just suck at making panoramas. Should have brought a nodal rail. Next time I'll tick in-camera corrections too, C1 doesn't have the necessary profiles built in.

I decided to fix the vignetting manually and did a new stitch, the banding seems to be fixed... time to re-process it. Hopefully it looks better.

"... 60MP is considerably more than 45 ..."  really ?? The difference is just 15% (planar).

15% is a lot imo. However the 20GM adapted to the Z7 displays consistent results. Conclusive but not too practical, no one shoot star targets all day wide open.

[ColinM]

I don't have much experience of wide angles, but am quite struck by these images,
plus some of the dramatic processing

...stayed in a graveyard all night!
Wasn't afraid to open up that iris and let all the light and other spooky stuff in.
 

I love this
Birna, do we need a new area of NG to cover energy sources outside the realm of the visible, IR and UV spectrum?
 

[Macro_Cosmos]

Fixing vignetting in post before exporting to tiff files for stitching seems to do the trick. Looks more natural now, no more banding!
20S vignetting is quite drastic wide open. It's expected and did cause me some stitching problems.