Reading mode: Light Dark

Nikon Z 24-70 f/2.8 for Landscapes?

Go to last post
Kamil Z

Kamil Z

Well-known member
Messages
202
Reaction score
476
I'm planning a photo trip to Iceland at the beginning of March and want to upgrade my lenses for that trip. I've bought the Z 14-24 to replace my F 14-24, mainly because of filters and size reduction, but also because of the image quality, the difference is like night and day. Now I'm asking myself if I should buy the 24-70 as well to complete the trinity.

According to reviews, it is one of the sharpest 24-70 zooms, but it also seems to be not as sharp as the 14-24 and the 70-200. Its sunstars seem mediocre, and it has an external zoom, which I don't like. In the rough weather conditions of Iceland, one wants the best possible weather sealing, i.e., an internal zoom. But at the same time, you don't want to change lenses too often. For me, the 24-70 seems to be the best alternative to close the gap between 24 and 70 mm. Even though the 24-120 seems to produce better sunstars, corner sharpness is more important for me.

Does anyone use the 24-70 f/2.8 for landscapes? If so, could you please share your experience with some images, preferably with sunstars?

Does anyone have experience with landscape photography in Iceland? If so, how often do you need the 24-70mm? Can I use the 50 1.8 and zoom with my feet instead? I've been to Iceland four times, but never as an experienced photographer.

I'm planning to buy a 24-70 f/2.8 anyway. But the 24-70 seems to be the most incomplete lens of the trinity and could very well be replaced soon (hopefully not by a 28-70 f/2).
 
Solution
A
Honestly, when you say you've heard or you think the 24-70/2.8S is the most incomplete lens in the trinity, I couldn't disagree with you more.

I'm in the middle of a very long, very thorough examination of 50mm options in Nikon Z land, and included in this evaluation is the 24-70 at 50mm. The purpose of my evaluation was to a) remove all preconceived biases I had about the various 50mm options I have, and b) do an extremely deep dive into performance of the various lenses for the landscape and portraiture use cases, which meant multi-scenario testing with an open mind to what the lenses can actually do, no matter what I may have thought going into it.

I can tell you that so far in my multi-lens evaluation that the 24-70 is anything...
I think diffraction occasionally is worried too much about, but then at the same time, it is a resolution killer, so it should be honored in the thought process. Anyone shooting a high rez camera at F/13 most of the time is not understanding the reality of it. I'd actually argue the same even at F/11.

When I evaluate lenses, which I do often, it's always interesting to me that on the Z8, on really excellent glass, you can start to see this amazing quality at F/4 (say, the apo lanthar or the central zone of the 35/1.2S) but as soon as you start to go to F/6.3, even though it's still excellent, I can tell a very slight drop off. If you were to start doing your own MTF testing with MTFmapper, you'd also see that your peak resolution is dropping.

So what's happening with the really good lenses is this: Take the apo lanthar. By 2 stops down you're now at the point where you've gotten rid of all the aberrations that go away as you stop down (the spherical, the coma, etc), and any increases in aperture (stopping down further) are usually just to try and mitigate some field curvature as best you can, since that (and astigmatism) don't go away as you stop down. There also might be some complex higher order aberrations - far more common in wide angles than telephotos, which could affect edges/corners stopped down a bit, but those are out of scope for this discussion.

My own personal goal is to not stop down beyond F/7.1 for max quality, but there are times I have no problem going to F/9. For landscape work I try to avoid F/10 and beyond, but again, if the scene needs it and there is no other way, then I'll use it.

I do aperture bracket if I have the time, and I'll often focus point bracket as well, again, if I have the time. That gives me choices later on.

However, by now, given I know the performance of my lenses quite well, I have a good instinctive idea of what aperture will work for the scene. But the matter of "time" is important...

Years ago, D800E era, I was at Bryce Canyon NP, on a lousy, cloudy, gray day with little sun. The weather had been moving through, and I caught a few breaks for some "eh" (okay, they were poor) shots, and was walking back to the car - giving up for the afternoon and headed back to the hotel for an early dinner. On the way back, right as I was opening the trunk to put my tripod in, I glanced up at the sky, and for some reason all those "lessons" from the really good landscape shooters I've met over the years became vocal in my head, the two big ones being "always watch the light" and "stay until you're absolutely sure there is nothing left - be the last photographer off the scene". So I saw this little gap in a cloud pattern, and the low angle sun, I thought, just *might* peer through. So I rushed back to where I was, put the D800E with the 25/1.4 Milvus back on the tripod as fast as possible, and just at that point, the most magical light I have ever seen in my life appeared. Literally about 3 seconds worth. I had time to choose an aperture/shutter and focus and I got off three shots - that was it, and then the light was gone, never to be seen again that day. I'm pretty sure if I had a Z7 then, I would have missed (camera boots up too slow), but thankfully, I knew instinctively, because of all of my evaluation, that the Milvus was best at 6.3 or 7.1, and to make sure, I chose 7.1. There was no time to fuddle about. The resulting shot is one of the top 5 I've ever taken, with these angry storm clouds over most of the overlooks features, but this narrow beam of saturated, cross lit, low angle sun blazing across that red rock, with storm patterns and microbursts in the background as well. 3 seconds to set up, focus, choose settings, and shoot, 3 shots, no fuddling about.

So there is a good reason to know your gear. Sometimes you will have time, and sometimes you won't.

Offhand - you've mentioned this in other threads - but I use a CoC for DOF work of .0127mm, and that's worked well for me over a very long time - it's a pretty stringent one, but I have very high quality standards and it's far more "accurate" than the old .03mm or even .02mm. You might want to give that a try. App wise, you'll laugh. I use the Kodak cinema tools app on my phone, which has a DOF calculator, and the settings for super-8 are that .0127mm CoC, so it's easy.
 
Given that a CoC of 0.03 is from the old film days, and was possibly a little suspect even then, you're probably right about 0.0127mm being more appropriate these days.
 
yea. I had moved to a different CoC even back in the film days, based upon an article I saw from a tech photography guy named "Ctien" (I think) in some technical photography magazine that had the math behind determining CoC and some other interesting-to-me-at-the-time things.
 
anotherMike said:
I think diffraction occasionally is worried too much about, but then at the same time, it is a resolution killer, so it should be honored in the thought process. Anyone shooting a high rez camera at F/13 most of the time is not understanding the reality of it. I'd actually argue the same even at F/11.

When I evaluate lenses, which I do often, it's always interesting to me that on the Z8, on really excellent glass, you can start to see this amazing quality at F/4 (say, the apo lanthar or the central zone of the 35/1.2S) but as soon as you start to go to F/6.3, even though it's still excellent, I can tell a very slight drop off. If you were to start doing your own MTF testing with MTFmapper, you'd also see that your peak resolution is dropping.

So what's happening with the really good lenses is this: Take the apo lanthar. By 2 stops down you're now at the point where you've gotten rid of all the aberrations that go away as you stop down (the spherical, the coma, etc), and any increases in aperture (stopping down further) are usually just to try and mitigate some field curvature as best you can, since that (and astigmatism) don't go away as you stop down. There also might be some complex higher order aberrations - far more common in wide angles than telephotos, which could affect edges/corners stopped down a bit, but those are out of scope for this discussion.

My own personal goal is to not stop down beyond F/7.1 for max quality, but there are times I have no problem going to F/9. For landscape work I try to avoid F/10 and beyond, but again, if the scene needs it and there is no other way, then I'll use it.

I do aperture bracket if I have the time, and I'll often focus point bracket as well, again, if I have the time. That gives me choices later on.

However, by now, given I know the performance of my lenses quite well, I have a good instinctive idea of what aperture will work for the scene. But the matter of "time" is important...

Years ago, D800E era, I was at Bryce Canyon NP, on a lousy, cloudy, gray day with little sun. The weather had been moving through, and I caught a few breaks for some "eh" (okay, they were poor) shots, and was walking back to the car - giving up for the afternoon and headed back to the hotel for an early dinner. On the way back, right as I was opening the trunk to put my tripod in, I glanced up at the sky, and for some reason all those "lessons" from the really good landscape shooters I've met over the years became vocal in my head, the two big ones being "always watch the light" and "stay until you're absolutely sure there is nothing left - be the last photographer off the scene". So I saw this little gap in a cloud pattern, and the low angle sun, I thought, just *might* peer through. So I rushed back to where I was, put the D800E with the 25/1.4 Milvus back on the tripod as fast as possible, and just at that point, the most magical light I have ever seen in my life appeared. Literally about 3 seconds worth. I had time to choose an aperture/shutter and focus and I got off three shots - that was it, and then the light was gone, never to be seen again that day. I'm pretty sure if I had a Z7 then, I would have missed (camera boots up too slow), but thankfully, I knew instinctively, because of all of my evaluation, that the Milvus was best at 6.3 or 7.1, and to make sure, I chose 7.1. There was no time to fuddle about. The resulting shot is one of the top 5 I've ever taken, with these angry storm clouds over most of the overlooks features, but this narrow beam of saturated, cross lit, low angle sun blazing across that red rock, with storm patterns and microbursts in the background as well. 3 seconds to set up, focus, choose settings, and shoot, 3 shots, no fuddling about.

So there is a good reason to know your gear. Sometimes you will have time, and sometimes you won't.

Offhand - you've mentioned this in other threads - but I use a CoC for DOF work of .0127mm, and that's worked well for me over a very long time - it's a pretty stringent one, but I have very high quality standards and it's far more "accurate" than the old .03mm or even .02mm. You might want to give that a try. App wise, you'll laugh. I use the Kodak cinema tools app on my phone, which has a DOF calculator, and the settings for super-8 are that .0127mm CoC, so it's easy.
Click to expand...
I'll do another aperture test (on my 24mp camera) of a "normal" scene or two, and report back the results with the sample images attached. Goal would be overall sharpness when looking at the image full size, and not just pixel peeping specific areas of the frame. Maybe I'll change my mind on this, maybe not. Will be interesting.

I think with experience everyone instinctively shoots at the aperture that they feel are right for the scene, whether that's the lens sharpest aperture chart or not. The term "sharpest aperture" or "best performing aperture" is misleading though, as you know that allways depends on the framing in every single image. Or else you'd never stop down past f/5.6 and it would allways be tack sharp across the frame. A lot of landscape images are way sharper across the frame when you stop down from the "sharpest aperture" of the lens. Choosing aperture for depth of field should be the main consideration, as that will make the biggest difference. Things being outside critical focus is often a much bigger punishment than diffraction, and it's more of a "resolution killer".
 
Last edited:
CoC should be maybe equal or smaller than your camera's pixel pitch. 0.03mm is 30 microns, which is huge compared to a 36MP sensor's 4.9 microns and 45MP's 4.5 microns. Jim Kasson's lens screening tests use half the pixel pitch of a sensor as their CoC. So in mm terms, we should be looking at 0.0045mm CoC, if not even finer, on our 45MP sensors if you intend to use resolution all way to the pixel level.

As reference, 0.03mm CoC is slightly coarser than a 1MP sensor.

--
https://www.instagram.com/lolcar/
 
Last edited:
I seldom leave an image completely uncropped in post. They might even end up being a square! Also for landscapes, two corners are most often up in the sky! To me, most of the time, potential corner sharpness problems does not matter!

I have both the 24-70mm 4.0 and a 24-120mm 4.0 and for me, the extra reach up to 120mm wins.

Kjell
 
Andre Yew said:
CoC should be maybe equal or smaller than your camera's pixel pitch. 0.03mm is 30 microns, which is huge compared to a 36MP sensor's 4.9 microns and 45MP's 4.5 microns. Jim Kasson's lens screening tests use half the pixel pitch of a sensor as their CoC. So in mm terms, we should be looking at 0.0045mm CoC, if not even finer, on our 45MP sensors if you intend to use resolution all way to the pixel level.

As reference, 0.03mm CoC is slightly coarser than a 1MP sensor.
Click to expand...
A CoC of 0.00435mm sounds a bit small. Aaron Priest says CoC should be twice the pixel pitch, or 0.009mm. The pixel pitch of the Z9 is the same as the D850, 0.00435, so technically 0.0087mm. Guess he rounded up:

web.archive.org

Hyperfocal Distance, Depth of Field, Circle of Confusion, Diffraction, and Print Size

Formulas for determining Hyperfocal Distance, Depth of Field, Circle of Confusion, Diffraction, Print Size, and how they all relate to each other.
web.archive.org web.archive.org
 
fimiank said:
I seldom leave an image completely uncropped in post. They might even end up being a square! Also for landscapes, two corners are most often up in the sky! To me, most of the time, potential corner sharpness problems does not matter!

I have both the 24-70mm 4.0 and a 24-120mm 4.0 and for me, the extra reach up to 120mm wins.

Kjell
Click to expand...
Totally agree.

My favourite place for taking pictures has wind, sand and - in many places - droplets of sea water.

Replacing lens in such conditions is really difficult (recently I've purchased old style film changing bag to change lens in bad weather, but did not used it yet). Extra range of 24-120 over 24-70 is blessing - when we notice that this lens is really sharp (at least my copy).

Btw, this was my hope when I've purchased 14-30/4, but - at last my copy - wasn't fit to my standards (it was misaligned, and after 3 visits in service they made it better - but not as good as I hoped), so I replaced it with 14-24/2.8 - super duper lens, but a bit clumsy. Pity that f4 lens was too poor.
 
Marcin 3M said:
fimiank said:
I seldom leave an image completely uncropped in post. They might even end up being a square! Also for landscapes, two corners are most often up in the sky! To me, most of the time, potential corner sharpness problems does not matter!

I have both the 24-70mm 4.0 and a 24-120mm 4.0 and for me, the extra reach up to 120mm wins.

Kjell
Click to expand...
Totally agree.

My favourite place for taking pictures has wind, sand and - in many places - droplets of sea water.

Replacing lens in such conditions is really difficult (recently I've purchased old style film changing bag to change lens in bad weather, but did not used it yet). Extra range of 24-120 over 24-70 is blessing - when we notice that this lens is really sharp (at least my copy).

Btw, this was my hope when I've purchased 14-30/4, but - at last my copy - wasn't fit to my standards (it was misaligned, and after 3 visits in service they made it better - but not as good as I hoped), so I replaced it with 14-24/2.8 - super duper lens, but a bit clumsy. Pity that f4 lens was too poor.
Click to expand...
I agree with everything here. I actually just sold my 14-30mm myself, and I'm waiting for a second hand 14-24mm 2.8 to show up. For me it was the stretched edges at 14mm post correction that got me, alongside "meh" performance when shooting into the sun. A bit of a shame, as I'm not going to get 112mm filters. I guess I can use filter on my 20mm, but I won't be able to use filters on anything wider.
 
Last edited:
Thomerik said:
Marcin 3M said:
fimiank said:
I seldom leave an image completely uncropped in post. They might even end up being a square! Also for landscapes, two corners are most often up in the sky! To me, most of the time, potential corner sharpness problems does not matter!

I have both the 24-70mm 4.0 and a 24-120mm 4.0 and for me, the extra reach up to 120mm wins.

Kjell
Click to expand...
Totally agree.

My favourite place for taking pictures has wind, sand and - in many places - droplets of sea water.

Replacing lens in such conditions is really difficult (recently I've purchased old style film changing bag to change lens in bad weather, but did not used it yet). Extra range of 24-120 over 24-70 is blessing - when we notice that this lens is really sharp (at least my copy).

Btw, this was my hope when I've purchased 14-30/4, but - at last my copy - wasn't fit to my standards (it was misaligned, and after 3 visits in service they made it better - but not as good as I hoped), so I replaced it with 14-24/2.8 - super duper lens, but a bit clumsy. Pity that f4 lens was too poor.
Click to expand...
I agree with everything here. I actually just sold my 14-30mm myself, and I'm waiting for a second hand 14-24mm 2.8 to show up. For me it was the stretched edges at 14mm post correction that got me, alongside "meh" performance when shooting into the sun. A bit of a shame, as I'm not going to get 112mm filters. I guess I can use filter on my 20mm, but I won't be able to use filters on anything wider.
Click to expand...
Good news is that the most expensive filter (polarizing) is (IMO) useless for FL below 28mm.

Another good news is, that 14-24 works fine with 100x150 filters (AF-S required bigger sheets of glass).

An finally - good news is that it can accept protection filter.

Great lens in many aspects.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

N
Already have a 70-200... 24-70 or 24-120?
2 3
Replies
48
Views
889
buildingsights
B
W
  • Solved
Measured weight of Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S II vs original S version?
Replies
16
Views
1K
whoosh1
W
F
Nikon Z 24-70 f/2.8 S II Bokeh Test
Replies
10
Views
990
Rodenmg
Rodenmg
M
Z 70-200 and 1.4 TC
Replies
14
Views
1K
Mike Arledge
M
lightaffaire
Z 24-70 2.8 Mk1 out in the real world
Replies
8
Views
37
sirhawkeye64
S

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top