Probably less relevant to real-world photography – although more relevant to online flame wars – is that the 24-120mm f/4 S is lighter than Sony’s and Canon’s similar lenses. Nikon managed this despite zooming to 120mm where the Sony and Canon stop at 105mm. However, the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S does not have image stabilization, while the other two lenses do, which accounts for some of the difference. NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 94mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/6.3 Build Quality Better performance would have been welcome, of course, but this isn’t so bad. In real-world images, it will be less obtrusive than this, since subject details always obscure vignetting somewhat. Not to mention that a bit of vignetting is welcome for many photos.

I’d prefer less vignetting on both lenses, to be sure. (I usually hope for 1.5 stops at the max, with anything under 1 stop of vignetting being negligible.) However, the clear winner here is the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S. In fact, the superzoom 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR has among the highest vignetting of any Nikon Z lens, reaching nearly 2.5 stops when shooting at 24mm, f/4, and close focus distance. At 120mm vignetting is also more pronounced and nearing 2 stops again, and the edges of the most dramatic vignetting are in further from the corners. You really have to stop down to f/8 to get to an ignorable level with corrections, and without corrections you'll always have at least a stop of vignetting in the corners. To me, the biggest handling issue with the 24-120mm f/4 S is Nikon’s inconsistency with the position of the rings on their mirrorless lenses in general. In the DSLR days, almost every Nikon lens had the zoom ring near the camera body and the focus ring near the end of the lens. Now, it’s a free-for-all. If you pair this lens with the 14-30mm f/4 S and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 S lenses (surely a popular three-lens kit), you’ll find that each one of the lenses has a different arrangement of their zoom/focus/control rings. That makes for a frustrating user experience. Nikon kept down the Z 24-120mm f/4 S’s weight pretty well, even though it’s not the lightest zoom in their lineup. What matters is usability, though, and I don’t mind keeping this lens glued to my camera all day. In particular, it’s not too much heavier than the Z 24-70mm f/4 S or the Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR. (That said, it’s noticeably wider and more bulbous than both.)As you can see, it's ultra sharp corner-to-corner, even shot wide-open here. It gets even sharper stopped down. The only things not sharp are simply out-of-focus due to the limited depth of field at f/4. Focus is on the central pineapple.

This comes down to newer technologies, the larger diameter Z-mount, and lenses optimized for digital correction. As a result, the Nikon Z 24-120mm F4 will probably do to the AF-S 24-120mm what the Nikon Z 24-70mm F4 did to the vastly more expensive Nikon AF-S 24-70mm F/2.8. The minor issues with the handling are two-fold. First, the 24-120mm f/4 S is a bigger lens than the 24-70mm f/4 S. For casual walk-around use, that does tend to make a bit of difference. I found myself having to watch from bumping the front of the lens into things while walking about, particularly if I had left it in the telephoto extended position. Walking around in crowded travel locations I found my lens bumped more than, say, the 24-70mm would have (particularly when that lens is in the collapsed position). Image stabilization: No. The Z 24-120 relies solely on the body-based stabilization on Nikon’s full-frame Z cameras. The F-Nikkor and the Z 24-200 offer optical stabilization (VR) which works in conjunction with the Z full-frame cameras to achieve stabilization over 5 axes for the Z 24-120 and 3 axes for the F-Nikkor. [0] AF-operation of the lens in photo-mode produces a very low buzz – a bit of which can also be heard if you record video with the built-in microphone.At minimum focus distance (1:2.4, which is getting near macro range) the lens is very good in the center at f/4, excellent by f/8. The DX corner is fair at f/4, good by f/8. The far FX corners never make it past fair at minimum focus distance, though. I'd also judge the lens to have some clear field curvature at close distance. An internal focusing mechanism means the lens barrel doesn't move, and it offers an impressive minimum focusing distance of 0.35m (1.15ft) and a maximum magnification ratio of 0.39x, whilst using 77m filters. There's a configurable ring on the lens barrel which allows you to control either aperture, exposure compensation or ISO speed.

Above from left to right: Nikon Z 24-70mm f2.8 S, Z 24-120mm f4 S, AF-S 24-120mm f4G VR on FTZ adapter, Z 24-200mm f4-6.3 VR In the Z 24-120mm f/4 S lens, Nikon have employed an iris diaphragm with 9 rounded blades, which combined with the rather slow maximum aperture results in fairly nice bokeh in our view. If this 1,200×900 pixel crop is about 12" (30cm) wide on your screen, the complete image would print at a mammoth 55×82½″ (1.4×2.1 meters) at this same extremely high magnification!It features an optical structure comprised of 16 elements in 13 groups, including 3 ED elements, 1 aspherical ED element, 3 aspherical elements, elements with Nano Crystal and ARNEO coats, and a fluorine-coated front lens element. While it works fine on APS-C cameras, you're paying a premium price for the privilege of covering full frame Using it on an APS-C camera throws away more than half of the image from this lens. Ideally use this lens on full-frame cameras for the results you deserve, or use the Nikon Z 18-140mm DX instead on APS-C because it goes wider and costs and weighs half as much because it doesn't need to cover twice the image area of the full frame. See also Crop Factor.

To test the effectiveness of the image stabilization with the Nikon Z 24-120mm f4 S on a Nikon Z7 camera body, I did a series of 140 test-shots hand-held at 120mm focal length with shutter speeds from 1/125 of a second down to 1/4 sec. I used the shots at 1/125 sec with VR=off as reference of how good my hand-holding was at the time of the test and Reikan FoCal did the chore of evaluating the sharpness of all shots. Overall, you don’t need to worry much about focal length, aperture, or focusing distance if you want to take sharp photos with the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S. It’s sharp all-around – a very forgiving lens. NIKON Z 9 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 100mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/5.6 With the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S lens set to its maximum aperture, there is some very obvious light fall-off in the corners, which you'll either need to correct in post-processing or stop-down the aperture to avoid.Frankly, I wasn't expecting to like the 24-120mm f/4 S. That was clouded by my opinion of the two previous Nikkor 24-120mm lenses in the F-mount, which both had very clear liabilities. There's little doubt in my mind that the new Z-mount version runs rings around those older F-mount ones, and I'm now wondering whether or not to move my Z7 II travel kit to the 14-24mm f/2.8 S and 24-120mm f/4 S to optimize the optics. (Another two-lens travel kit that makes sense for those willing to compromise would be the 14-30mm f/4 and 24-200mm f/4-6.3). In short, photographers can comfortably use the Z 24-120mm f/4 S when bright points of light are in the composition. The lens handles them very well, both in terms of flare and sunstars. Sharpness Compared to the 24-120mm f/4G: Nikon's own MTF charts tell you most of what you need to know: the Z-mount lens is simply better. It retains central performance over a much larger area, and has much better edge/corner performance. This is more true at the wide angle end than the telephoto end, but still basically true at all focal lengths. It focuses closer. It has no issues with aberrations or flare. The bokeh looks better. No contest, really.