As the shifting road to mirrorless cameras and lenses continues, I’m sharing my review of Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4 S lens. As a die-hard believer in my trusted f-mount 24-70mm f/2.8, I honestly struggled with which general purpose lens to buy a year ago.
Which was the best choice for my current, evolving work? The 24-120mm f/4 or the 24-70mm f/2.8 Z lenses? If you’re torn between the two, the good news? Both lenses are great options!
Questions & Decisions: Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4 S
Questions of image quality, convenience, weight, pricing all hip-hop danced in my head until it hurt. Seriously, with mirrorless technology, lens and image quality rocks across price points and apertures.
I’m sharing my review of 1) how I decided on this this lens and 2) how I feel today with one full year of test data. My test data is the reality how it works for me in the field.
In short, I call that the happiness factor. How happy am I with the quality, usability, flexibility and daily handling of this lens? Read on!
The Road of Making the Decision: Review of Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4 S
Is there a bad lens decision?
Short answer. No, not really. If the decision is based on the direction of where I’m taking my work going forward, it’s the right one. In short, we expect professional grade, high quality images to work with in post processing.
Image quality starts with the photographers composition, technique and eye. The other component is the quality that’s captured with the lens and camera.
Which Lens? Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4 S or 24-70mm f/2.8
My first mirrorless lens decision? An easy one! When purchasing my Z9, my first Z lens was Nikon’s 100-400mm f/4-5.6 S lens (review coming in the next blog on this lens). I needed a general purpose lens for compressed landscapes, and for bird and wildlife photography at a focal distance up to 400mm . Easy decision! This lens filled in the majority of the gap between my at the time current 70-200mm and telephoto of my 500mm telephoto.
The 2nd lens decision is the hardest
The second lens decision was what to do with wide angle to middle distance. My workhorse range. My almost daily space. In my mind, a massively big decision.
Since I purchased the 100-400 lens, if I purchased the 24-70 – there’s a 30mm gap in my shooting arsenal. Before making the decision, I continued to use my f-mount 24-70 f/2.8 with the Z adapter to test if the 30mm gap posed an issue.
After 2 months, I realized that this gap was significant in my landscape work. I was changing lenses more frequently or missing some desired compositions in camera.
I took the plunge and in short, I love Nikon’s 24-120mm lens.
What is My Happiness Factor?
Features, functions and tech specs are important. Many sites and blogs offer detailed stats. For these I rely on Nikon’s website, shopping websites (Amazon and others with user reviews) and a few technical reviews. I need to understand, compare and appreciate the tech specs before buying.
In addition to the specs, I also reached out to a couple of photographers using these lenses already for their feedback.
With lenses, balancing the technical with real world usability is where the rubber meets the road. Does it deliver day in and day out to meet and exceed our own expectations?
My criteria and observations of Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4.
Day In & Out Usage of Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4 S
- General purpose lens, a workhorse that delivers. Produces very sharp images, great color, crisp details at very close-up range in addition to distance. Big focal distance flexibility in one lens. Wide angle, portraits, in tight shots for close up photography, flower photography and more. All with excellent quality.
- Performance across focal lengths. Image quality is sharp across the focal range.
- Close up photography. Handles close up photography with ease. The featured image of this blog is a close up using Nikon’s 24-120 f/4 S lens. Sharp across the range.
- Starbursts (I love my starbursts!). Produces pretty, sharp starbursts at f/16 – f/22.
- Good size and weight (22 oz) for daily use, packing, travel and street photography.
- Roughly 50% less in price than the 24-70mm 2.8. Used cost the difference and applied it to Nikon’s 14-24mm f/2.8 Z.
Night Skies – Night Photography
- Low light performance. Good in low light, including night photography – see the Marquette image above. For more examples of this lens and Northern Lights, refer to: How to Photograph the Aurora Borealis Note: I do not rely solely on this lens for night skies, northern lights, milky way, etc. Nikon’s 14-24mm range is where I chose to invest in the f/2.8 lens for big night skies. A review on this lens is coming soon.
Wrapping it up – I love Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4 S!
Nikon’s 24-120mm continues to be a proven performer. This versatile lens allows me to focus more on shooting in the moment. The flexibility of wide angle to mid-range combined with close up photography helps keep me in my shooting groove. Knowing then what I know today, would I make the same decision? Absolutely!
