I’d rather have a 24-200 f4.5-9 than spend money on Nikon’s half hearted DX cameras. I wouldn’t mind having the Zfc with 16-50 as a very compact and pocketable travel camera, if the price was right, but this all plastic zoom is just too much money to justify, imo.
Rob H
April 27, 2024 9:49 am
Thanks for the review Spencer – lovely photographs, as usual. I use this lens on my Z50 for backpacking trips, where weight is at a premium and swapping lenses can be a pain. This combo is almost a full pound lighter than a 24-200 on a Z5, and that’s a difference you feel. I’ve been happy with the results. The general excellence of the 16-50 means that the 18-140 is not an automatic choice, but its telephoto capability is nice and it’s what I usually settle on when I’m looking for a single-lens solution.
caj
April 26, 2024 8:48 pm
Very good review (as always). Thank you Spencer.
I’ve used the Z50 and the two original kit lenses (16-50mm and 50-250mm) for a couple of years as a daily carry camera. All fit nicely in my messenger bag or a small fanny pack.
My preference is for wide angle lenses, so when the 12-28mm was introduced, I adopted it immediately. I more recently added the 18-140mm as a compliment to the wide angle zoom and that pairing has worked out quite well with a bit of overlapping focal lengths.
There are no hard and fast rules for focal lengths, but my experience is: For outdoor hikes and activities the original 16-50mm and 50-250mm pairing is a great kit. For indoor things like tourism, museum, social events, documentation and such the 12-28mm and 18-140 have been very useful focal lengths. Both kits fit the same small bag or fanny pack.
Hope you might be planning a review of the 12-28mm sometime.
Chris
Christophe
April 26, 2024 6:22 am
“At least at the moment, there is no Nikon DX camera that is sold alongside this lens as a pair”
In France this lens is offered as a kit with the Z50 and Zfc
I don’t understand why Nikon made this lens. I own the z50 and the 2 kit lenses. They cover most of the bases, as you noted. Nikon does not seem interested in this format by what they are producing. If I decide to stick to Nikon, I’ll need to go full frame by the looks of it. No hint of a Z500 (which would be great for birds).
I agree. It’s very frustrating. I’m currently waiting on the Z6iii, but I’m not holding out that much hope that it’ll trump the D500 for wildlife/action photography. If you can’t afford exotics, then you need an aps-c sensor that will put 21mps at 750mm with a 500mm lens. A 24mp fx camera just puts about 11mps in dx mode. It’s a bit of a bad show that I might end up trying to buy a used 2016 camera (costing £1,700 new) because it’s better for action photography than a 2024 camera (costing £2,500). I don’t want to pay £4,000 for a Z8 solely because it has 21mp in dx mode (I’m quite content with 24mp for non-action photography). A £1,000 Z5 and a £800 used D500 might be the solution. Oddly.
I made the same calculation and recently purchased a used D500. Sure, a Z8 would offer better focusing performance, but I’d just be cropping out those extra pixels. The difference in cost paid for a nice lens.
Lawrence Lee Huber
April 25, 2024 3:22 pm
Excellent review of a Nikon lens. Most all reviews of Nikon lenses are just driveling platitudes of praise because it is a Nikon product. This gives the good, and the bad unvarnished. Thank you.
S L Sparks
April 25, 2024 2:10 pm
No competition for my Z 24-200.
Richard Angeloni
April 25, 2024 1:47 pm
I was not in the market for this lens but Amazon ran one of its random sales for the Z 18mm-140mm and I saw it was close to 30 percent off, so I picked on up. I have been generally pleased with it and have not experienced any wobble when the lens is fully extended. It basicially lives on my Z30 and it’s a great lens to take as a walkaround or when you are looking for a one-lens solution. To me, without doing any official testing, the Z version is better than the F mount DX version, by far.
Mario
April 25, 2024 9:44 am
For people in the market for one camera one lens combinations I’d think it would be very interesting to add the 24-200 on fullframe to the comparison page. I’d also be very interested in the comparison between the 28-400 on fullframe and the 50-250 on aps-c, since I’ve been thinking about a light weight solution for long focal lengths for quite some time now. And, I know I’m getting unreasonable here, also the canon 100-400 f5.6-8 :)
This would be a very useful and informative rabbit hole to go down Spencer. As you and I have discussed before, “very generally”, full frame will produce better optical quality compared to APS-C. But a proper comparison would be useful.
Now someone like me – resolution is high on my list of priorities. But smaller sensors have value which Fuji in my view has demonstrated the best. The objective of the analysis is not to produce a pissing contest between fanboys, but to produce a useful comparison.
A truly meaningful comparison between the capabilities of these lenses on a DX camera would require a retest on DX. If you just want to know if the 18-140 on a Z50 or the 24-200 on a Z7 will resolve more detail, I can give you the answer without an MTF test. ;)
Rene Grothmann
April 25, 2024 3:51 am
How do the numbers compare to the Nikon Z full-frame numbers? Let`’s say I mount a 50mm f/1.8 S on this camera. How would these numbers be?
What numbers ? Sharpness ? Vignetting ? Distortion ? Those are LENS DEPENDENT. Nothing to do with sensor size except in vignetting case where full frame lens will do better on APS-C sensor and reasons for that are obvious. No shortcuts, you need to learn technical side of photography ;)
While technically correct, you haven’t answered the question. The question is actually good, if one would mount 50mm f/1.8 (which would become, in DX, 75mm equivalent f/1.8), it is interesting what the numbers would be.
The right part in your answer is that this is purely the lens, so it’s correct to take 50mm f/1.8 numbers on a Z full-frame camera. From photographylife.com/revie…m-f1-8-s/3, it says (I don’t know on which camera):
– at 1.8, ~3300 in the center – at f/2.8 and f/4, almost 4000 in the center
So yes, much much better. Even the 20mm f/1.8 is similar, ~3200 at f/1.8, and ~3800 at f/2.8 and f/4. But it’s kind of apples to oranges, IMHO.
A better test would be the 24-120 f/4 – which gets 3300-3500 across the whole zoom range at f/4, in the center. The weakest being 50mm.
If you want to know the performance on a DX sensor, the FX numbers you quote need to divided by 1.5. Roughly. The sensor is smaller, so the resolution on that sensor (in lines per image height) will not be the same because the image height is not the same.
I was very specific in my question, I think. And his answer was also very specific. He says, that they measure resolution of the lens, independent of the sensor. But I cannot believe this. All measured full-frame Nikon Z lenses are a factor of 1.5 better in center sharpness than comparable APS-C lenses.
You are correct. Even though the resolution of a lens in line pairs per millimetre on an optical bench is independent of a sensor, the fact that FX and DX sensors are not of the same size makes it immediately clear that this statement cannot be true for the resolution in line widths *per image height* (which his what is measured in Spencer’s reviews).
Hi Rene, bg5931 is correct and Iustin is mistaken. The measurement we use for sharpness tests is line widths per picture height (“picture height” referring to the width of the camera sensor.) If you want to see how any full-frame lens that we have tested would perform in sharpness on DX, you would look at the center and midframe values and divide them by 1.5. This would correspond to the center and corner values that the full-frame lens would achieve on DX.
At some point, I’ll write a separate article discussing this as well. One tricky thing to understand is that a dedicated DX lens will often be sharper *over the DX sensor area* than an FX lens over that same area (although using the FX lens on DX has other advantages, like minimal vignetting). Of course, an FX lens on an FX sensor will almost always resolve more total lines (or line widths) compared to a DX lens on a DX sensor.
“…line widths per picture height (‘picture height’ referring to the width of the camera sensor.)”
My understanding of the Imatest LLC documentation is that ‘picture height’ refers to the smaller of the two dimensions of a landscape orientation picture, in which: picture height ≤ picture width
QUOTE Imatest SFR results
The use of picture height gives a slight advantage to compact digital cameras, which have an aspect ratio (width:height) of 4:3, compared to 3:2 for digital SLRs. Compact digital cameras have slightly more vertical pixels for a given number of total pixels. For example, a 5.33 megapixel compact digital camera would have 2000 vertical pixels — as many as a 6 megapixel DSLR.
I’d rather have a 24-200 f4.5-9 than spend money on Nikon’s half hearted DX cameras. I wouldn’t mind having the Zfc with 16-50 as a very compact and pocketable travel camera, if the price was right, but this all plastic zoom is just too much money to justify, imo.
Thanks for the review Spencer – lovely photographs, as usual. I use this lens on my Z50 for backpacking trips, where weight is at a premium and swapping lenses can be a pain. This combo is almost a full pound lighter than a 24-200 on a Z5, and that’s a difference you feel. I’ve been happy with the results. The general excellence of the 16-50 means that the 18-140 is not an automatic choice, but its telephoto capability is nice and it’s what I usually settle on when I’m looking for a single-lens solution.
Very good review (as always). Thank you Spencer.
I’ve used the Z50 and the two original kit lenses (16-50mm and 50-250mm) for a couple of years as a daily carry camera. All fit nicely in my messenger bag or a small fanny pack.
My preference is for wide angle lenses, so when the 12-28mm was introduced, I adopted it immediately. I more recently added the 18-140mm as a compliment to the wide angle zoom and that pairing has worked out quite well with a bit of overlapping focal lengths.
There are no hard and fast rules for focal lengths, but my experience is: For outdoor hikes and activities the original 16-50mm and 50-250mm pairing is a great kit. For indoor things like tourism, museum, social events, documentation and such the 12-28mm and 18-140 have been very useful focal lengths. Both kits fit the same small bag or fanny pack.
Hope you might be planning a review of the 12-28mm sometime.
Chris
“At least at the moment, there is no Nikon DX camera that is sold alongside this lens as a pair”
In France this lens is offered as a kit with the Z50 and Zfc
bought as a kit the lens costs €429 or about the same in dollars
www.nikon.fr/fr_FR…VOA050K012
I don’t understand why Nikon made this lens. I own the z50 and the 2 kit lenses. They cover most of the bases, as you noted.
Nikon does not seem interested in this format by what they are producing.
If I decide to stick to Nikon, I’ll need to go full frame by the looks of it. No hint of a Z500 (which would be great for birds).
There are many situations where I don’t want to change lenses and this one is perfect in that case.
I agree. It’s very frustrating.
I’m currently waiting on the Z6iii, but I’m not holding out that much hope that it’ll trump the D500 for wildlife/action photography.
If you can’t afford exotics, then you need an aps-c sensor that will put 21mps at 750mm with a 500mm lens. A 24mp fx camera just puts about 11mps in dx mode.
It’s a bit of a bad show that I might end up trying to buy a used 2016 camera (costing £1,700 new) because it’s better for action photography than a 2024 camera (costing £2,500).
I don’t want to pay £4,000 for a Z8 solely because it has 21mp in dx mode (I’m quite content with 24mp for non-action photography). A £1,000 Z5 and a £800 used D500 might be the solution. Oddly.
I made the same calculation and recently purchased a used D500. Sure, a Z8 would offer better focusing performance, but I’d just be cropping out those extra pixels. The difference in cost paid for a nice lens.
Excellent review of a Nikon lens. Most all reviews of Nikon lenses are just driveling platitudes of praise because it is a Nikon product. This gives the good, and the bad unvarnished.
Thank you.
No competition for my Z 24-200.
I was not in the market for this lens but Amazon ran one of its random sales for the Z 18mm-140mm and I saw it was close to 30 percent off, so I picked on up. I have been generally pleased with it and have not experienced any wobble when the lens is fully extended. It basicially lives on my Z30 and it’s a great lens to take as a walkaround or when you are looking for a one-lens solution. To me, without doing any official testing, the Z version is better than the F mount DX version, by far.
For people in the market for one camera one lens combinations I’d think it would be very interesting to add the 24-200 on fullframe to the comparison page. I’d also be very interested in the comparison between the 28-400 on fullframe and the 50-250 on aps-c, since I’ve been thinking about a light weight solution for long focal lengths for quite some time now. And, I know I’m getting unreasonable here, also the canon 100-400 f5.6-8 :)
This would be a very useful and informative rabbit hole to go down Spencer. As you and I have discussed before, “very generally”, full frame will produce better optical quality compared to APS-C. But a proper comparison would be useful.
Now someone like me – resolution is high on my list of priorities. But smaller sensors have value which Fuji in my view has demonstrated the best. The objective of the analysis is not to produce a pissing contest between fanboys, but to produce a useful comparison.
A truly meaningful comparison between the capabilities of these lenses on a DX camera would require a retest on DX. If you just want to know if the 18-140 on a Z50 or the 24-200 on a Z7 will resolve more detail, I can give you the answer without an MTF test. ;)
How do the numbers compare to the Nikon Z full-frame numbers? Let`’s say I mount a 50mm f/1.8 S on this camera. How would these numbers be?
What numbers ? Sharpness ? Vignetting ? Distortion ? Those are LENS DEPENDENT. Nothing to do with sensor size except in vignetting case where full frame lens will do better on APS-C sensor and reasons for that are obvious.
No shortcuts, you need to learn technical side of photography ;)
While technically correct, you haven’t answered the question. The question is actually good, if one would mount 50mm f/1.8 (which would become, in DX, 75mm equivalent f/1.8), it is interesting what the numbers would be.
The right part in your answer is that this is purely the lens, so it’s correct to take 50mm f/1.8 numbers on a Z full-frame camera. From photographylife.com/revie…m-f1-8-s/3, it says (I don’t know on which camera):
– at 1.8, ~3300 in the center
– at f/2.8 and f/4, almost 4000 in the center
So yes, much much better. Even the 20mm f/1.8 is similar, ~3200 at f/1.8, and ~3800 at f/2.8 and f/4. But it’s kind of apples to oranges, IMHO.
A better test would be the 24-120 f/4 – which gets 3300-3500 across the whole zoom range at f/4, in the center. The weakest being 50mm.
If you want to know the performance on a DX sensor, the FX numbers you quote need to divided by 1.5. Roughly. The sensor is smaller, so the resolution on that sensor (in lines per image height) will not be the same because the image height is not the same.
Bg5931 – Correct!
It is an entirely legitimate question. His only possible crime is that he wasn’t specific enough to suit your taste, which is hardly a crime.
May I suggest that you respond in a helpful way, assuming that you have the required expertise.
I was very specific in my question, I think. And his answer was also very specific. He says, that they measure resolution of the lens, independent of the sensor. But I cannot believe this. All measured full-frame Nikon Z lenses are a factor of 1.5 better in center sharpness than comparable APS-C lenses.
You are correct. Even though the resolution of a lens in line pairs per millimetre on an optical bench is independent of a sensor, the fact that FX and DX sensors are not of the same size makes it immediately clear that this statement cannot be true for the resolution in line widths *per image height* (which his what is measured in Spencer’s reviews).
Hi Rene, bg5931 is correct and Iustin is mistaken. The measurement we use for sharpness tests is line widths per picture height (“picture height” referring to the width of the camera sensor.) If you want to see how any full-frame lens that we have tested would perform in sharpness on DX, you would look at the center and midframe values and divide them by 1.5. This would correspond to the center and corner values that the full-frame lens would achieve on DX.
At some point, I’ll write a separate article discussing this as well. One tricky thing to understand is that a dedicated DX lens will often be sharper *over the DX sensor area* than an FX lens over that same area (although using the FX lens on DX has other advantages, like minimal vignetting). Of course, an FX lens on an FX sensor will almost always resolve more total lines (or line widths) compared to a DX lens on a DX sensor.
Thanks for that clarification. It agrees with my thinking. An article about this is a good idea. Greetings, and keep up the good work!
“…line widths per picture height (‘picture height’ referring to the width of the camera sensor.)”
My understanding of the Imatest LLC documentation is that ‘picture height’ refers to the smaller of the two dimensions of a landscape orientation picture, in which:
picture height ≤ picture width
QUOTE
Imatest SFR results
The use of picture height gives a slight advantage to compact digital cameras, which have an aspect ratio (width:height) of 4:3, compared to 3:2 for digital SLRs. Compact digital cameras have slightly more vertical pixels for a given number of total pixels. For example, a 5.33 megapixel compact digital camera would have 2000 vertical pixels — as many as a 6 megapixel DSLR.
www.imatest.com/docs/full.html