10399 yuan!
On April 18, Nikon officially launched the new Z-mount Tianya Lens Nikkor Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR, which is another Tianya lens that has broken through the 10,000 yuan mark after 20 years.
In everyone's impression, Tianya Mirror is a lens with mediocre image quality, and even part of the focal length belongs to the phone bill, Z 28-400mm f/4-8 has set a new high in the optical zoom magnification of a full-frame lens, what is the image quality, and is it worth it to change the 400mm telephoto for the 24mm wide angle?
Mirror of the End of the World
In the era of SLR, Nikon and Canon coincidentally chose 28-300mm F3.5-5.6 as the end of the mirror, Canon emphasizes image quality and performance, EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM has a red circle blessing, using an annular ultrasonic motor, weighing 1.67KG, and the length is also 184mm, which is comparable to 728, while Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR is not small, 800g heavy, 114.5mm long.
After entering the mirrorless era, Tianya Mirror emphasizes lightness, so Sony reduced the focal length and aperture of the telephoto, and launched the FE 24-240mm F3.5-6.3 OSS, followed by Canon, Tamron, Nikon, and Panasonic all followed Sony's example to weaken the telephoto in order to reduce weight and size, but the focus of each company is different.
Coupled with the fact that there are so many Z-mount standard zoom lenses, and the Nikkor Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR was released in 2020, Nikon's Z 28-400mm f/4-8 is somewhat surprising, but its metrics are quite attractive. The weight of the lens is 725g, which is lighter than the 24-240mm of C and S, and the length is only about 20mm, which is not much longer than the RF100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM (635g) of C, and even shorter than 2 cm (141.5mm PK 164.7mm).
However, it should be noted that the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 is about twice as long when fully deployed, i.e. zoomed to 400mm, making it a "true long" focal length lens, so be careful when using it.
And in order not to block the angle of view of the lens, the standard HB-114 is a short and wide square lens hood, which is easy to store and looks full.
In addition, the appearance of the lens is not much worth talking about, from the front of the lens to the bayonet position are a wide zoom ring, a custom control ring, of which the zoom ring zoom travel is only 95°, zoom quickly, and with a lock switch, you can lock the lens on the 28mm focal length, in addition, there are no switches, buttons. It is recommended to set the focus effect of the custom control ring, and the reasons are explained below. With a metal bayonet, the barrel is dustproof and water-resistant.
In terms of grip, when the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 is paired with the Nikon Z8, the heavier body will not play a significant trim role, and the deeper handle will not improve the grip, and the whole system feels heavier. On the Z7, although the camera grip is shorter, thanks to the lighter body, the whole system will feel better than under the Z8, which is not difficult to see the positioning of the Z 28-400mm f/4-8.
Like most Tianya mirrors, the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 does not come with a tripod ring, nor does it have an original tripod ring to purchase, so it can only be fixed to a tripod through the body, but 400mm is too long, and a slight adjustment of the camera angle will change the lens angle significantly. If you're planning to get the Z 28-400mm f/4-8, it's a good idea to purchase a third-party tripod ring as well.
Shoot with your hand
What is the advantage of the Tianya mirror, you can shoot anything, you can shoot with your hand raised, and this is even more obvious on the Nikon Z 28-400mm f/4-8. Today, 28mm is not wide, and it is not even as wide as the main camera of the mobile phone, but it has entered the range of wide angles, and you can shoot a lot of things, 24mm can shoot, 28mm can shoot mostly. 400mm is epoch-making, 400mm is a very exaggerated existence in standard zoom lenses, but from the standard of telephoto lenses, 400mm is the entry point of telephoto, which can be used to shoot forest birds, and water birds can also be obtained at close distances. In short, the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 is a full-frame mirror that can shoot birds, hence the following set of photos.
28mm
32mm
84mm
220mm
280mm
400mm
Thanks to the high zoom ratio, you can not only get close to the building, use the bow effect to make the building appear grander, but also open up a little distance, use a flat perspective to record the building and the surrounding environment, or use a longer focal length to avoid the crowd, shoot a part, if you pull the focal length to 280mm, you can use cherry blossoms as the foreground, shoot the spire of the building, when you hear the whistling sound of a jet plane, look up to shoot a flight flying high in the sky, 14x zoom can unlock a lot of shooting poses.
If you are shooting birds, it is recommended to turn on the DX mode (APS-C), and in the Z8 with DX mode on, it is about 19.2 million pixels, and the lens angle of view can be equivalent to 600mm.
In terms of macro photography, the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 magnification is not outstanding, the maximum magnification is at the wide-angle end at 0.35x, and the telephoto end magnification is not officially indicated, only indicating that the closest focusing distance is 1.2 meters. However, in practice, thanks to the close shooting distance of the telephoto end, it is very easy to shoot ecological subjects such as bee honey collection.
As an added bonus, thanks to its long focal length and close shooting distance (0.8 m for 200mm, 1.2 m for 300mm and 400mm), the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 is able to do wonders when shooting small objects, and get a very good bokeh effect without cluttering the background due to the F8 aperture.
400mm@F8
The Z 28-400mm f/4-8 wide-angle lens is 4mm longer than the C and S lenses, and it is almost impossible to limit the subject matter due to the 4mm difference, but the telephoto can be increased to 400mm, which can easily shoot subjects such as airplanes and birds, and is more practical.
Will the image quality work?
Nikon Z 28-400mm f/4-8 is not the first Tianya lens with a focal length of 400mm, it has already achieved 400mm on the APS-C lens of the sub-factory, and the focal length is longer than Nikon at the equivalent of 135 viewing angles. The Z 28-400mm f/4-8 gives you a flexible shooting effect, but is the image quality good and enough?
The Z 28-400mm f/4-8 adopts 15 groups of 21 optical structures, including 4 low dispersion ED lenses, 3 aspherical lenses, no special instructions for coating, with 5 stops of VR shock absorption (it can be increased to 5.5 stops under double shock absorption), 9 aperture blade design, and the maximum aperture of different focal lengths is: 28mm-F4, 35mm-F4.5, 50mm-F5.6, 105mm-F6.3, 200-400mm-F8, the minimum aperture range is F22-45.
The test camera chose the Z8 with about 47.51 million effective pixels, which is one of Nikon's mirrorless cameras with the highest pixels at present, but due to the low-pass filter, the clarity will be inferior to the Z7 and Z7 II, but for the Tianya mirror, 45MP is already a high climb. The following photos were taken in FX format without special instructions, the format is lossless compressed RAW, and the output is output with Lightroom in post, the sharpening is set to Quantity 35, Radius 1.2, Detail, and the manual noise reduction is set to Luminance 15, Detail 75, Contrast 20, Color 25, Detail 50, Smoothness 50.
The first shot is a 28mm wide-open aperture with a backlit side, and the center of the frame is pretty good, but the sharpness drops more noticeably the closer you get to the edges, and the chromatic dispersion increases significantly.
In the second shot, also taken at 28mm, the aperture is closed to F8, which is the aperture commonly used for landscapes, and the resolution at the edges is noticeably improved, but the resolution at the corners is insufficient, and the dispersion is not improved compared to when the aperture is wide open.
The third shot is shot at 28mm wide aperture, but the focus distance is pulled to the closest, and the center area has surprisingly good resolution, with no noticeable loss from close-up.
Earlier, the 28-400mm patent was leaked on the Internet, showing that the 28mm end of the lens can cover the full-frame imaging circle, unlike the 24-200 wide-angle end that cannot cover the full-frame imaging circle, although we can't be sure whether the finished lens is completely consistent with the patent, but from the results, Nikon optimized the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 wide-angle end, although the performance cannot be compared with the Sline lens, but it can still be used at high pixels.
Next up is a 70mm focal length shot with the aperture closed to F8, at which point the center of the lens, edge resolution, and dispersion are far better than 28mm, available at 45.71 million pixels.
Looking at the telephoto end of the lens, the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 telephoto end only has a good resolution in the center of the frame at wide open aperture, and the resolution drops significantly at the edge of the APS-C. However, in actual shooting, the telephoto end of the lens is much better than expected, and the photo below is taken with the lens at 280mm and 400mm wide open aperture.
280mm@F8
400mm@F8
At both focal lengths, the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 has good resolution from the center to the edges of the APS-C, with a noticeable drop in the corners. In practice, the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 has a weak wide-angle resolution, and the APS-C edge resolution is still not able to feed the 45MP pixels even after the aperture is reduced to f/8, and the overall resolution will be significantly improved from the medium focus, even up to 400mm.
By the way, the dispersion problem is evident in the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 wide-angle edges, which cannot be resolved even when shrunk to the f8 aperture and requires post-processing to remove. On the other hand, the telephoto end does not produce significant dispersion at the edges of flowers and branches, whether it is in the light or against the light, which is far better than the wide-angle.
The Z 28-400mm f/4-8 lens hood has a limited shading range, and the number of lens groups is more than 10, so the challenge of fighting flare is relatively large.
28mm@F4
28mm@F8
400mm@F8
In direct sunlight, the wide-angle and telephoto contrast levels inevitably drop, but glare isn't too severe, and the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 performs passingly. However, the first lens of the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 does not use fluorine coating, and the Tianya lens has to correspond to different scenes, and the anti-fouling and dirt resistance of the lens should be a question mark.
Finally, I have to talk about autofocus, the Z 28-400mm f/4-8 uses an STM stepper motor, so the focus is quiet, and you don't have to worry about recording the focus sound when shooting videos, and the focusing speed is average. However, because the zoom magnification is too high, if you focus on a long-distance target before zooming, and then focus on a close spot after zooming, the AF system is likely to "strike" and manually focus to bring the focus point closer, and then autofocus, which is relatively easy to occur at the telephoto end.
epilogue
At the moment of the Nikon Nikkor Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR, I believe that most photographers and photography enthusiasts agree that it has strong versatility, after all, the 400mm telephoto is not a vegetarian at full frame, and it is not difficult to find through real shooting, the maximum aperture at the 400mm end is only F8, but it can meet the use of 45MP, while the 28mm wide-angle performance is slightly inferior, especially the chromatic dispersion problem, which needs to be corrected in post. All in all, the Nikkor Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR is a world-class camera that can fight on a 45MP body, and there is no pressure on a 24MP body. If you are planning to travel during 5.1, this lens is well worth buying, it can accompany you to the desert, grassland, high mountains, and can also be used to capture the migration of animals on the grassland and birds hiding in the trees.
唯一让人纠结的点是价格，Nikkor Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR价格破万，介于Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S与Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S两支S line镜头之间，若是尼康定价9999元，说不定很多人就冲动消费了。
Nikkor Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR样张（RAW转JPG格式）：
400mm，F8，ISO 560
400mm，F8，ISO 1600
400mm，F8，ISO 1250
270mm，F8，ISO 180
400mm（DX），F8，ISO 90
400mm，F8，ISO 64
28mm，F8，ISO 450
28mm，F8，ISO 64
28mm，F4，ISO 360
400mm，F8，ISO 100
400mm，F8，ISO 320