Introduction

Today I’m taking a look at the Nikon Z 20mm f/1.8 S—a focal length that sits right on the edge between ultra-wide and more “safe” wide-angle lenses. It offers the immersive field of view that many people love for landscape, architecture, and environmental portrait photography, without being so wide that composition becomes tricky. The fast f/1.8 aperture is useful in low light, and combined with the focal length, makes this lens a strong option for astrophotography. It’s not among Nikon’s cheapest lenses at around $1000, but it is, of course, an f/1.8 S-Line lens. Let’s see if it’s worth the price.

I tested this lens on a 46 Mp Nikon Z7ii (Sample images were taken with a Nikon Zf)
You can see this review as a YouTube video here!
Sample images in high resolution here.

Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review and many more can be found in higher resolution here.

Specifications

Disclosure

Kamerastore kindly loaned this lens for test and review purposes.

Handling and Build Quality

The lens has excellent build quality. It’s tightly assembled and made mostly of what feels like high-quality plastic, with a metal lens mount and focus ring. The markings are etched into the side. There’s no image stabilization built in, but most Nikon Z cameras have in-body image stabilization anyway. It features autofocus, along with an A/M switch on the side.

The Nikon Z 20mm f/1.8 S has a rubber gasket on the mount to prevent dust and other debris from getting into the lens and the camera. On top of that, the lens is fully sealed in a number of different areas in order to keep dust and moisture out.

There’s only one ring—a large, metallic focus ring—which turns smoothly and can be customized to control aperture, exposure compensation, or ISO.

Manual focusing is responsive, and although the lens uses a focus-by-wire system, it can be set to behave linearly. Autofocus is fast, accurate, and quiet.

It has a 77mm filter thread, the front lens or the filter does not rotate when focusing, which is good. It comes with front and rear caps, as well as a hard plastic, petal-shaped lens hood.

The lens feels solidly built overall, although its shape is a bit unusual—long and relatively thin.

Optical Features

Sharpness (Infinity)

For the infinity sharpness test, we look at three areas of the image, centre, mid-frame, and corner, see highlighted areas in the image below!

Center sharpness is excellent wide open at f/1.8, with midframe and corners not far behind, although the extreme corners are slightly softer. Stopping down to f/2.8 brings the lens to near-perfect sharpness across the frame. Performance remains excellent through f/11, with a slight drop from diffraction becoming more noticeable at f/16, but even then, the center is excellent with midframe and corner at a very good level. Contrast remains excellent across the frame throughout the aperture range, from f/1.8 to f/16.

Sharpness (Close-up)

At close focusing distances, sharpness is already very strong at f/1.8, stopping down to f/2.8 makes it almost perfect, and it remains consistent through f/11. At f/16, diffraction introduces a small loss in sharpness, but overall performance is still very good.

Lens Distortion

With this lens, Nikon Z cameras allow you to disable in-camera distortion correction, which I did for this test. The distortion is moderate; Lightroom’s profile correction fixes it automatically, but I found slightly better results by applying a +7 manual adjustment.

Vignetting

Vignetting is quite pronounced at f/1.8, but in line with other lenses in this class. It improves to moderate levels at f/2.8 and becomes low at f/4 and smaller apertures. It never quite disappears, though, and you may still notice some light fall-off in the corners, especially in bright scenes like snowy landscapes.

• F/1.8: 2.2 EV
• F/2.8: 1.6 EV
• F/4.0: 1.2 EV
• F/5.6: 1.2 EV
• F/8.0: 1.2 EV

Chromatic Aberrations

There is a very small amount of longitudinal chromatic aberration, which is unlikely to be noticeable in normal shooting scenarios. It seems that the three low dispersion elements do a good job here. From f/2.8 onwards, LoCA disappears completely.

Lateral chromatic aberration is controlled quite well and is not noticeable.

Flare Resistance

The Nikon Z 20mm f/1.8 S shows very little ghosting and flare, even with the sun in the frame, as seen below. Of course, the angle of light and the sun’s position can affect how any lens handles flare, but in this case, the Z 20mm f/1.8 S appears to be very well controlled, with almost no flaring and maintained contrast even with the sun in the image.

Coma

Coma performance is better than any other ultra-wide-angle lens I’ve tested, though it’s not perfect wide open at f/1.8—nothing serious, however. It improves to a negligible level at f/2.8 and disappears entirely by f/4.

Sunstars

The Nikon Z 20mm f/1.8 S can produce 18-point starbursts (sunstars) thanks to its 9-blade rounded aperture. You need to stop down to at least f/11, though, with smaller apertures producing even stronger results.

Focus Breathing

This 20mm Z lens exhibits a moderate amount of focus breathing, which is not as well-controlled as on other Z S-Line lenses.

Bokeh

Ultra-wide-angle lenses like the Nikon Z 20mm f/1.8 S aren’t really designed for producing “pretty” bokeh, especially with so many aspherical elements. So don’t expect large, dreamy bokeh balls, even at close distances. That said, the background blur is generally smooth and pleasant when shooting subjects up close.

Short Distance

Mid-Distance

Long Distance

Conclusion

As the Like/Don’t Like table shows, the Z 20mm f/1.8 S leaves little to seriously complain about. Of course, you could always wish for slightly better distortion control, stronger sunstars at wider apertures, or a lower price—but that’s human nature; no lens can make everyone completely happy.

It’s an excellent lens with superb optical performance—better than the already very good Nikon Z 24mm f/1.8 S and significantly better than the AF-S 20mm f/1.8G, one of my favorite lenses for landscape and architecture—excelling in almost every category except minor distortion and, perhaps, sunstars.

As mentioned in the introduction, this lens comes at a premium, but its performance fully justifies the price.

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Alternatives

Nikon AF-S 20mm f/1.8G
Nikon’s F mount version and the prdecessor or the reviewed lens
Buy new: Amazon (anywhere) for $ (Affiliate links)
Buy used: Kamerastore, ebay.com from $420  (Affiliate links)

Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art
It is actually longer than the already very long Nikon Z 20mm too and almost twice as heavy. It also requires an FTZ adapter, which only adds more weight and bulk to the setup. It has heavy field curvature and a banana-shaped coma.
Buy new: Amazon (anywhere) for $974 (Affiliate links)
Buy used: Kamerastore, ebay.com from $380  (Affiliate links)

Viltrox AF 20mm f/2.8
Weighs only 157 g, 55mm long
Buy new: Amazon (anywhere) for $176 (Affiliate links)
Buy used: Kamerastore, ebay.com from $149 (Affiliate links)

Nikon AF 20mm f/2.8D
A small lens that weighs a mere 270 grams with a length of 43 mm, from 1994
Buy used: Kamerastore, ebay.com from $240 (Affiliate links)

Nikon NIKKOR 20mm f/2.8 Ai-S
Another Nikon F-mount lens, but a manual focus one from 1984. it weights only 260 g and is 43 mm long. It is a manual lens and completely mechanical.
Buy used: Kamerastore, ebay.com from $380 (Affiliate links)

More Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review and many more can be found in higher resolution here.

Further Reading

• What camera gear and accessories do I use most frequently?
• Review: Viltrox 20mm 2.8 AF FE and Z
• Review: Nikon AF-S 20mm 1.8G

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Martin

Martin M.H. lives outside Stockholm, Sweden. He is a M.Sc. in Computer Technology but he has been a passionate photographer for over 50 years. He started his photographic adventures when he was thirteen with an Agfamatic pocket camera, which he soon replaced with a Canon rangefinder camera that his mom gave him in his teenages. After that he has been using Canon SLR, Nikon SLR manual focus and Autofocus, Sony mirrorless crop sensor, Nikon DSLR and Nikon Mirrorless. He has photographed any genre he could throughout the years and you can see all kind of images in his portfolio. During the later years though it has been mostly landscape, nature, travel and some street/documentary photography.

Latest posts by Martin (see all)

• REVIEW: Nikon Z 20mm f/1.8 S - March 25, 2026
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