By now I have used more than 260 lenses. Interestingly there has never been a 24-70mm 2.8 midrange zoom among those, even though they are really popular, there are a lot of them and pretty much any manufacturer made at least one. In my pursuit of assembling a set of affordable autofocus lenses with nice imaging characteristics, it is now finally time to change that. So let’s have a closer look at this Nikon AF-S 24-70mm 2.8G IF ED N.
I guess you did not expect to see a comparison of fast 55-58mm f/1.2 to f/1.4 lenses for Nikon F-mount in 2024, but I also did not expect to see Cosina releasing a new F-mount lens in 2023, so here we are. We will be looking at the Nikon 55mm 1.2 Ai, the first F-mount lens as fast as f/1.2 from 1965, its modern reincarnation by Cosina, the Voigtländer 55mm 1.2 SL IIs Nokton from 2023 and Cosina’s fan favorite F-mount portrait lens, the Voigtländer 58mm 1.4 SL IIs Nokton, which is around since 2007.
Continue reading Comparison: Fast 55/58mm f/1.2 | f/1.4 Manual Fullframe Lenses for F-mount
The Voigtländer 58mm 1.4 SL IIs Nokton has been in production since 2007 and gathered many fans over the years. This is probably the reason Cosina updated its casing design several times throughout the years while keeping the optics the same. Let’s see if we can find out what people like about it in this review.
Continue reading Review: Voigtländer 58mm 1.4 SL IIs Nokton (Nikon F)
Nikon Z 28/2.8 has the classic focal length for candid street work and is a very compact lens. In fact, it is one of the smallest and lightest Z prime lenses for fullframe cameras. It can be fitted on an APS-C camera as a prime standard lens, which will have the equivalent focal length of 42mm, my favorite standard focal length. It is also one of Nikon’s most affordable Z lenses for fullframe cameras. Note that it is not an S series lens. Let’s see how it performs!
This lens was tested on Nikon Z 7II with its 46 Mp sensor.
You can see this review as a Youtube video here.
Hereafter, for ease of writing, I will use Nikon’s designations for fullframe (FX) and APS-C (DX).
With the rise of the 80-200mm f/2.8 zooms it seems the 180-200mm f/2.8 primes fell out of fashion, as for more than 20 years no manufacturer bothered to design a new lens like this (not counting a few third party macro options). While Canon last updated their 200mm 2.8 in 1996, Nikon never updated the optical design of their Nikon AF 180mm 2.8 since 1986. Is this still a worthwhile lens today? Let’s find out in this review.
