No kidding, I much prefer this trend! The ultra-heavy f/1.4 prime lenses may be sharp, but they aren’t nearly as good for lightweight landscape photography.

Sure thing! Hoping to do more at some point.

Really appreciate it! Welcome aboard.

Wow, thank you! Glad you liked the review so much and found it useful enough to trust for your purchasing decision. It’s a great lens and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Haha, that’s awesome! Thanks for the great feedback.

Vaibhav, much appreciated! Glad it was so useful, and yes, more on the way in the future.

Awesome! You’re quite welcome, glad you found it to be useful.

Thank you, Stuart!

Glad you liked it so much and welcome to our channel!

So glad it was helpful! Thanks for the feedback.

Sure thing! I made the same decision as you and ultimately kept the 14-30 rather than the 20 1.8. They’re both great lenses, just with some different strengths and weaknesses.

Haha, glad you liked that!

Thank you for the kind words! Glad you’ve enjoyed our content so much.

Hi Spencer, what cameras (z- and f-Mount) did you use for this review?

I both filmed and took all the sample photos with the Z6 and Z7 (mainly Z6 for video and Z7 for stills).

Thanks and will do!

Brilliant! Happy to hear it.

Sure thing!

Sure thing!

Sure thing!

Glad to hear it! Welcome!

I think you made a fine decision! The F-mount lens is certainly good, but especially if you plan to shoot at wider aperture values, the Z lens clearly is better.

Thank you! Glad you like our channel so much.

Glad you liked it!

Really appreciate it!

Glad you liked the review and frustrating to hear that these lenses aren’t yet available for you in Spain. Crazy times, I know people who have been waiting for almost six months for the Z 70-200mm f/2.8.

Glad you liked it!

Thank you, Frank, and I’m looking forward to testing that lens as well! I had the DSLR 14-24mm f/2.8 and always liked it, hopefully this one is even better.

Sure thing!

Glad you liked it, thanks, Peter!

Sure thing, glad you liked it!

Glad you liked it!

Really appreciate it!

Glad you liked it and will do!

Thank you! And good suggestions. The S 20mm f/1.8 has somewhat nervous bokeh, probably thanks in part to the three aspherical elements. “Bokeh balls” have a moderately strong ring around them as well. Even then, it’s far from unusable, just not as good as what you’d find with portrait-specific lenses. Autofocus is nearly silent with this lens because of the focus by wire system. I used it for video with no issue at all.

Fair enough. They’re pretty comparable in both regards, once you’re within their shared aperture range of f/4 and beyond. I’d say the 20mm is the slightest bit better in both areas, but nothing noticeable once you’ve corrected vignetting and chromatic aberration in post.

That's what I got as well! I think you'll really like it. It's my personal favorite wide angle lens I've ever used.

Really appreciate it! I’m a fan of Nikon’s approach to mirrorless as well, aside from a couple specific gripes. At least for my style of landscape photography, it works great, and I wouldn’t swap it out for any other on the market right now. That said, I’ve also used Canon cameras as recently as a year ago and liked them as well. Most cameras today are so good that it’s mindblowing. If only that were enough to save the camera industry...

I fully agree, most of them have excellent benefits. I have also used Canon for work and Sony, I just came across with something superior from Nikon's Expeed 6. In my case and even my clients have reacted to the quality of details that the system provides. Thank you for your kindness in commenting and communicating in the videos. About camera industry... It is the collateral effect of wanting everyone to have a camera, it was included in cell phones. Now "we want" cell phone features in cameras :)

Thank you, hoping to do more when I can!

You are quite welcome! And thanks for the heads up about the duplicate specifications. Not sure how that happened, but I’m fixing it now.

Thank you! It’s from Imatest. That’s the company Photography Life (who I work closely with) uses to test lenses.

Glad you liked it!

They are indeed! I’m a big fan so far. Just waiting on a lightweight telephoto zoom...

I would certainly like to, but I’m not sure at the moment how many other reviews I’ll do on this channel. It does look like an exciting lens, however.

Yes, I'm hoping to do several this year!

Really appreciate it! Sounds to me like your copy of the 20mm G is at least a little bit decentered. If you end up deciding to switch to the Z lens, I think you’d find things much easier, but even with a decentered 20mm G, I’m sure you’re still getting good photos. I agree with regards to Nikon, it seems that they have serious issues reaching out to influencers. Here’s hoping they find a way to turn it around.

I might consider the 20 1.8s for the next milky way season. I was doing mostly tracked panos with the 50 1.8s this year when I had the opportunity to travel to darker locations, which was rare due to COVID. So my astrophotography plans have now shifted for next year - timelapse with one z6 and 20 1.8, tracked panos with another z6, or z5 and 50 1.8.

@@PhotographyLifeChannel I watched your review of this lens one more time and decided to upgrade :D cannot wait to try it for astro, but in June its a bit difficult in Germany as the night is too short.

Much appreciated! I’m afraid that I haven’t used the Sigma myself and we haven’t tested it in the lab yet, either. From what I see online (particularly the two CameraLabs reviews of the lenses), the Nikon is sharper in the corners by a bit. Both seem pretty comparable in quality, though. The real question is whether you’re willing to exchange the ~2/3 stops of light in exchange for less weight. Wish I could be of more help on that.

Sure thing! I think you'll like it. It's an awesome lens.

That sounds like a very versatile set of lenses! I was interested to hear recently that the 14-24mm is going to be able to take filters (albeit large ones). If I had known that, I may have waited for it instead of getting the 14-30mm f/4.

I’m afraid I haven’t tried that lens yet. Need to add it to my list!

Not a video review, but I did write one last year: photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-z-14-30mm-f4-s

Prego 😄

It's a really versatile focal length. The 14-30mm is strongest around the 20mm mark, but if you need f/1.8 or just prefer prime lenses, the 20mm f/1.8 is as good as it gets.

Thanks! Wishing for a 70-200mm f/4 or 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 myself, but neither of those is even on the roadmap. Hope you get your 70-200mm f/2.8 soon. You’re not the only one I know who’s waiting for it!

@@PhotographyLifeChannel I just wait a few years, and then I see if I go from the E-mount to the Z-mount with all its advantages.

@Øyvind Holmstad - That sounds like a smart plan!

@@PhotographyLifeChannel Good news, the rumors must be true that Nikon is FINALLY ready to ship the Z 70-200 f/2.8 lens starting next week. The lens is now showing "add to cart" rather than "Pre-Order" on Nikon's web site. I hope our hopes are not dashed once again and this holds as true.

@g Dan - That’s encouraging! Looking forward to testing this lens as soon as possible then.

Most of the F-mount glass is still quite good at 46 megapixels, particularly for landscapes when stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8. If you're using wider aperture like f/2 for your nightscapes, you may start to see an advantage with the Z glass. But I still use plenty of F-mount glass with my Z7, no issue (including the 20mm f/1.8 G).

I like the suggestions you bring up, they’d be great additions! So far, the Nikon Z lenses have been remarkably sharp and high quality overall. I do wish they’d fill out the lineup faster, to make it competitive with Sony (and Nikon F-mount). Though I’m sure it’s a challenge given the current state of the world.

@@PhotographyLifeChannel - lens architecture can be split into "retro-focus" versus "Gaussian". Gaussian has an innate ability to cancel out chromatic aberration (CA) and relatively simply controls distortions. On 8"*10", a wide angle is far from the film and Gaussian still works. On a SLR, digital or film, the mirror box gets in the way and you need retro-focus - thus ruining Gaussian principles and erasing their benefits. At the introduction of mirrorless, I thought, looking up, thank you someone. Too soon. Sensors cannot handle a sharper angle of incidence than 90 degrees very well. The earliest lens design I became aware of that addresses this: the Zeiss 35 on the Sony R1 compact. Its elements almost touch the sensor. Oh My Google, a retro-focus design with condenser back-end. What The Flip is going on? Oh, I see, they solved the angle of incidence issue. Is this the future of lens design? How does Leica do this with all their old Gaussian designs? (A Leica never had a mirror box. Yes, diehards, I'm aware of Visoflex.) Funk! They turned a Fresnel lens into cut up rings with an individual lens over each photosite in the sensor guiding light from sharper angles into the sensor. Chips, this must be an average for the back-end of their lenses, do the extremes benefit less. This before Nikon Z. The Nikon released Z and I had several déjà-vues. The shallow flange distance allows lens back-ends to almost touch the sensor. The wide flange diameter allows condenser-like rear ends. And the lenses have many more elements, are not lighter, not shorter. Nikon-san, I see what you're doing here. Smart cookies! Old lens lore has issue with lots of glass elements as each surface has to glaring risks (so one element has four, if we discount a cylindrical side that could still add 2). Nikon-san, What were you thinking? Turns out they solved the glare issue for a lot of elements in a row. Solved CA. Increased detail resolution. Wow. Can you imagine a Leica buff in NY, NY, asking Nikon to start making the Z 50/1.8S for Leica? Influencers: 1.8 is not professional. I: Depth of Field (DoF) depends on the circle of confusion of a lens and the resolution of your medium. A Z 1.8S may have less DoF than an old 1.4 or 1.2 ... And, I don't need a faster lens to still see something in my viewfinder as it's electronically amplified. Lens design becomes less of an issue with longer focal lengths - I want a Z 180/2.8S. Extension rings and Z glass are physically possible but Z glass optimizations don't work. I want a Z macro, say 100, that is excellent still at 5' to 2m and can be stopped down to f/32. For wildlife photography, not my thing, the F lenses are great and the FTZ adapter works great. If the lens has modern AF.

Yes! Nikon added that feature after this video was published. I encourage people to enable it.

Yes, it's just as fast and accurate as the kit 24-70mm f/4, as best as I can tell. It would make a good studio vlogging lens in combination with the face tracking and AF-F on the Z50.

@@PhotographyLifeChannel perfect; thanks for the reply, now to order one 😝

No kidding! I feel like I was actually too negative on the Z lens by comparison - it’s actually competent in terms of sunstars, but was going up against possibly the best lens on the market in that regard.

The 14-30mm has practically no coma - not a massive surprise because it’s f/4 (recall the high sharpness it had in the corners at that aperture). I actually use it as my main astrophotography lens, in combination with image stacking to reduce noise.

Photography Life excellent thank you! I did surmise that.

Tracker and stacking tracked shots at f4 is ok, but the same method and 1.8 is way better.

Glad you like it! So far, every Z lens we’ve tested has outperformed its F-Mount counterpart overall, though - as with sunstar effects on these two lenses - the F lenses sometimes win out in some specific respects.

Daniel Matveev I had it with the kit 24-70f4 and it’s amazing. There’s a couple of videos on KZfaq that compare the 2.8 vs 4 and there’s virtually nothing between them except price.

I’d say to get the 14-30mm unless astro is a bigger goal for you. You can still do Milky Way photography with the 14-30mm, but you’ll either need to deal with more noise or find a star stacking program that lets you align and average your astro photos together. For more general landscape work, the 14-30mm is far more flexible because of its zoom range, and it sounds like that’s more important in your situation. But they’re both excellent lenses, and you can’t go wrong with either!

@@PhotographyLifeChannel appreciate it! Love the video!!!

@@robertpizzo5681 Happy to hear it, thanks!

From what I’ve heard, the Z cameras prioritize autofocus speed when adapting lenses, akin to using the viewfinder rather than live view on a DSLR. For that reason, autofocus accuracy isn’t as high (again like a DSLR’s phase detect) and AF fine-tune may be necessary. Interestingly, I’ve found that magnifying live view and *then* autofocusing leads to more accurate results (and isn’t as fast).

Yes, both tested on the same Nikon Z7.

@@PhotographyLifeChannelThanks 😊

That certainly is the case with some of Nikon’s Z lenses, such as the 14-30mm f/4, which is really like 12.5mm or 13mm at the wide end before distortion correction. But the 20mm f/1.8 has such minimal distortion that it still is clearly wider than the old lens even after corrections. Whether that’s because the Z lens is more like 19.5mm, or the F lens is more like 20.5mm, I’m not sure.

@@PhotographyLifeChannel Thank you!

You won't be disappointed with the 1.8/20 - or any of the new S primes - on the Z7. I tried a GFX50R with a few different lenses, including the GF 4/23, before investing in the Z system. The advantage of the larger sensor is obvious at high ISO, but at base ISO for landscape photography the difference is surprisingly small. I decided the GFX was not worth the extra cost, bulk and weight - not to mention the extra hassle of focus stacking for DoF. The Z 1.8/20 is tack sharp even in the extreme full frame corners with moderate stopping down, just as good as the GF 4/23 (always assuming, of course, you don't get a poor copy with lens skew, etc).

It’s been a while since I filmed the video, but no, I don’t think so. If anything I may have used a polarizer on some of them.

Yes I did!

They’re the best tripods I’ve ever used. And close to the best tripod heads.

Yes, there now is! It was released in a firmware update for Nikon Z cameras. It wasn’t out at the time I published this review, but I highly recommend enabling it. It’s in the setup menu and called “save focus position.”

@@PhotographyLifeChannel Ahh that explains it.s I just got into the Zline rabbit hole myself. I came in at a good time.

I would get the 20mm f/1.8 if you’re on the fence. Since most people already have a zoom that goes to 24mm anyway.