Nikon Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 Review

Introduction

Ease of Use

Weighing in at 350g (12.4oz) and measuring 106.5mm (4.2in.) in length (when set to the 24mm focal length), the Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 is a very lightweight and compact lens given the versatile focal range of 24-105mm that's on offer.

It feels perfectly balanced when using it with a mid-sized camera body like the Z8 that Nikon provided for us to test it with, as shown in the product photos, and would also be equally at home mounted on a smaller Z-series camera.

It's important to note that the lens does gradually extend further by an additional 56mm to reach a total length of 163mm when fully zoomed out to 105mm, so it's not quite as compact as it first looks when set to the 24mm focal length.

Build quality is good, but not outstanding, for what is after all only an enthusiast-level lens. With a mostly plastic construction, the Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 feels fairly solid in your hand, although it does have a plastic rather than a more durable metal mount.

Note that this lens has a weather-resistant design to help protect it against dust and moisture. Nikon do state though that "The lens is not guaranteed to be dust- and drip-resistant in all situations and under all conditions."

There are no external switches or buttons at all on the Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 lens, so you'll need to delve into the camera menus to choose between auto-focusing and manual focusing.

Note that there is no image stabilisation system built into this lens, instead relying on the camera body. This is fine when the lens is on the full-frame FX Z-series camera bodies which all have IBIS, but not on the DX format cameras which don't have that feature.

Located towards the lens mount end of the Nikon Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 lens, there’s the first (and smallest) of the lens’ two rings. By default it is the manual focus ring, but in autofocus mode it can be used to engage manual focus override or alternatively set the aperture, exposure compensation or ISO speed.

The manual focus ring has no hard stops at either end, making it harder to know when you have reached infinity focusing. It has just enough resistance to make fine adjustments to manual focusing, without having too much give.

The second ring is the generously sized zoom ring, which has focal lengths marked at 24, 35, 50, 70, 85 and 105mm and rotates through 90 degrees from 24mm to 105mm.

The zoom ring is ridged and the control ring is knurled, helping you feel them by touch when shooting through the viewfinder.

Auto-focusing is satisfyingly quick and quiet thanks to the onboard linear stepping motor which makes it ideally suited to both stills shooting and video. 

Shooting with the lens proves it to have almost unerringly accurate and rapid autofocus in the majority of situations, with barely any hunting at all. It’s also impressively quiet, too.

Disappointingly this lens does not ship with either a lens hood or a case, only the two lens caps. The optional petal-shape HB-93B hood adds around £$35 to the cost of this lens.

Focal Range

The Nikon Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1's focal range provides an angle of view of 84° at 24mm and 23° 10’ at 105mm.

24mm

105mm

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as blue or purple fringes along contrasty edges, were not especially apparent in our test shots, only appearing in very high contrast areas.

Vignetting

With the Nikon Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 lens set to its maximum aperture, there is some obvious light fall-off in the corners, which you'll either need to correct in post-processing or stop-down the aperture to avoid.

24mm

105mm

Distortion

There's some very mild barrel and pin-cushion distortion at either end of the focal range in both the JPEG and Raw files, but it's not too pronounced. Note that Auto Distortion Control is set to On when this lens is mounted and cannot be turned off.

24mm

105mm

Sunstars and Flare

The Nikon Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 produces very nice sunstars when stopped-down to f/22, as shown below, although it is prone to flare when shooting directly into the sun thanks to the lack of a supplied lens hood.

Macro

The Nikon Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 offers a minimum focusing distance of 0.28 m (0.92 ft) at the 105mm focal length, with a maximum magnification of 0.5x at the 70-105 mm focal length. This enables you to capture some very good close-up shots when shooting at the 105mm focal length.

Bokeh

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc.

In the Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 lens, Nikon have employed an iris diaphragm with 7 rounded blades, which combined with the rather slow maximum apertures results in fairly nice bokeh in our view.

We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included lots of examples below for your perusal.

Sharpness

In order to show you how sharp the Nikon Z 24‑105mm f/4‑7.1 lens is, we are providing 100% crops on the following pages.