- Joined
- Nov 3, 2018
- Messages
- 220
I read an article about this enormous Z lens -- of course I cannot afford to buy this monster to test it myself. I own only one Z lens 24-70mm f/4. The author of this article tested the Noct lens and the result was very interesting so I would like to share some finding with you. In this test, he compared 4 Nikon lenses: NIKKOR Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct、NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.8 S、AF-S NIKKOR 58mm f/1.4G, and AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G. Since the introduction of Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 in 2014, there is an air of acceptance that a VERY GOOD lens is OK to be VERY HEAVY and HUGE. Even so, this Nikkor Noct astounded everybody with its weight being 2kg and huge. He used a small doll and lots of colored lights on the background. The Noct produced the largest background bokeh as expected. But what was amazing is the sharpness of the doll the lens was focused on. With a lens wide-open, the two F lenses produced a very soft focus while the Noct f/0.95 and Z Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 S produced a crystal clear focus. Historically there are a few f/0.95 lenses in the past and if you count just faster than f/1.4 there are a lot. But for all these fast lenses in the past (without exception), the wide-open depiction was traditionally very soft -- with a promise that the lens suddenly becomes sharp as you close down 1-2 stops. The test using f/2.8 for all four lenses still showed a very clear difference between the Z and F lenses in sharpness. In other tests, axial chromatic aberration (purple fringes) was very small for the two Z lenses compared with these F lenses (which are already considered superb among all Nikkors). In the night scene test, both Z lenses showed a very small sagittal comatic aberration (like a comet's tail) of the point-lights of the building while both F lenses exhibited strong flare. In the daytime test of high rises, undeniable sharpness extends to the entire frame for the Z lenses, not just the center of the frame. In fact, Z 50mm was sharper than the Noct. In this series of test, the difference between the F lenses and Z lenses became painfully clear. This sharpness of lens at wide-open is something which was achieved only after the introduction of full-frame mirrorless system - a larger mount diameter and shorter flange distance. The same observation is done for Canon's RF mirrorless lenses. What this author pointed out is unexpectedly superb quality of the Z 50mm f/1.8 lens, that costs only one tenth of the Noct. And I am sure the same thing can be said about all S-line fixed-focus lenses from Nikon compared with the F counterparts. The benefit of the new Z mount is undeniable.
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