Thom Hogan

In working on future site updates and design, I built a few tools that allow me to look at things a little differently. One of those was to put all the Z lenses into a database I can work from. This led me to play around a bit—I like play, as it often informs work—and to discover a few bits and pieces that are amusing, if nothing else.

I'm going to do this just for Z-mount autofocus lenses. Here are some things you can learn by playing with a database like this:

• Widest lens — Laowa 10mm f/2.8 (130° diagonal)
• Narrowest lens — Nikkor 800mm f/6.3 (3° diagonal)
• Current total AF lenses — 93 94 (I don't count SE models or other duplicate models as different)
• Number of DX lenses — 32 33 (another introduced as I published this)
• Most complex optical construction — 600mm f/4 TC VR S (26 elements in 20 groups)
• Highest number of ED elements — 6 (tie between 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S and 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S)
• Highest number of aspherical elements — 7 (24-120mm f/4 S)
• Best non-macro magnification — 1:2 (Nikon 70-180mm f/2.8, Tamron 50-400mm f/4.5-5.6)
• Smallest length — 26mm f/2.8 (24mm)
• Longest length — 600mm f/4 TC VR S (437mm)
• Lightest weight — TTArtisans 27mm f/2.8 DX (100g)
• Heaviest weight — 600mm f/4 TC VR S (3260g)
• Lowest price — Yongnuo 50mm f/1.8 DX (US$120)
• Highest price — 600mm f/4 TC VR S (US$15,499)

So by the powers vested in me by the Nikkor gods, I hereby proclaim the 600mm f/4 TC VR S the winner, taking four categories in a rout over the competitors. 

Another amusing thing to do is to consider the Nikkor model numbers as indicative of when they were approved to go to production (something I believe to be true) versus their announce date. The first lens that got a model number appears to be the 24-70mm f/4 S. Any lens model number introduced out of order after that becomes conspicuous. The big surprise there was the 24mm f/1.8, introduced a year after the next number in the series (35mm f/1.8). Another curiosity is the missing numbers. We seem to be currently missing 20121, 20124, and 20127. 

Okay, I'm done playing. Back to work.

Nikon today released firmware version 1.02 for the Nikon Z6 III camera, with two fixes. One deals with a problem where certain CFexpress cards wouldn't record videos, the other fixes a problem where an Ethernet connection (via dongle) would fail.

(Version 1.01 was skipped for most of the world, as it only applied to making Nikon Image Cloud available in mainland China.)

My books on the Nikon Z cameras have a full list of error messages and things that are commonly overlooked, but I thought it useful to put some of these that are generic on the Web site. (The Camera and Lens sections will appear as permanent articles in the relevant sections on this site.)

General

• You discover you forgot something. Make checklists and verify that you've packed everything before taking that trip.
• You gear falls to the floor. (1) You aren't re-zipping your bags after taking something out. (2) You haven't tightened something in your support system (leg locks, Arca-Swiss clamp, etc.). These can be very expensive mistakes.

Camera

• You don't see anything on the Rear LCD, or the automatic viewfinder/LCD change isn't happening. The eye detector mechanism in the eyepiece is dirty or you've accidentally set Viewfinder only with the Monitor Mode button.
• Interval timer shooting or Time-lapse is stuttering. Your interval is probably less than the shutter speed and/or image processing time (e.g. Long exposure NR is On). Note that the long shutter speeds from about 4 seconds to 30 seconds are actually longer than the stated number (30 seconds is close to 32 seconds).
• Camera won't let you set raw. You have pre-release capture or another JPEG-only function such as HDR (overlay) or pre-release capture active.
• Images aren't full frame (on a full frame camera). You have Image area set to DX or are using a pre-release capture setting that forces a crop. Make sure that you set DX crop alert to On (this is not the default!) and pay attention to the upper right corner of the display while photographing.
• Your images aren't numbered sequentially and/or your folder numbers are incrementing. You probably put a card into the camera that has been used by another camera. Nikon is following DCF rules here and picking up the "last image/folder" information from the card. Folder numbers also increment when the file number reaches 9999 or more than 5000 images are in the folder.
• You see DEMO on playback. You don't have a card in the camera. You need to change the Slot empty release lock setting to Release locked. Also, you're not paying attention to the frames remaining counter (-E-) or the no card icon that should appear.
• Camera is taking random photos of nothing. On a Z9 or a body with an MB battery grip, the vertical release lock is not engaged and you're accidentally touching the vertical shutter release. On other Z cameras, you probably have Touch controls enabled and have set Touch shutter/touch AF. 
• Your customized settings aren't what you thought they should be. On a Z8 or Z9 the very first thing to look at is what banks you're in. On the Mode dial cameras, move the dial to one of the PASM positions and then back to U1, U2, or U3. Generally, my advice for all Z users is to carry a card around with your settings on it. When you get into an unknown state and you don't know why, and it starts taking too much time to figure out what's going on: (1) SETUP > Reset all settings; followed by (2) SETUP > Save/load menu settings > Load menu settings from that card I told you to carry.
• Your exposure is varying all the time. One of two things: (1) you've enabled bracketing; or (2) you're assigned Aperture or Exposure compensation to the lens control ring and are accidentally touching that ring and resetting your aperture.

Lenses

• You can't set Mechanical shutter. Some lenses don't allow this. Use Auto instead, which will manage the switch between shutter types for you.
• Camera not focusing on near subjects. Do you have the lens set to Full Range or a limited range?
• Camera not focusing. Do you have the switch on the lens set to M (manual focus)? 
• Lens doesn't seem to work correctly. You might have accidentally pressed the Lens Release button and slightly twisted the lens. You'll know for sure when the lens falls off the camera ;~).

Nikon introduced the 50mm f/1.4, giving us four different autofocus 50mm Z-mount choices (50mm f/1.2 S, 50mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.8 S, and 50mm f/2.8 MC). Couple that with the near-normal 40mm f/2 and some third party choices, and we have quite a range of lenses available now for the traditional "normal" lens. 

The question I see a lot of Z users asking is "why?" 

I understand the thought behind the question, as producing so many primes in such a narrow band—now seven lenses between 35mm or 50mm—feels like too much trying to do the same as before (film, DSLR), and not enough exploring new options. Still, I think Nikon has clearly revealed their hand with the prime lenses:

• Z5 and Zf users — being targeted with smaller, lighter, less expensive primes. The fact that these are 24mp sensor cameras targeting more the entry/casual full frame user means that optical clarity at high resolution isn't the design target. Lenses that fit this category are: 28mm f/2.8, 35mm f/1.4, 40mm f/2, 50mm f/1.4, 50mm f/2.8. Low price tends to be one of the design factors in this grouping.
• Z6 and Z7 users — a step upward. Many of these users were among the first to move from DSLR to mirrorless, and wanted more than just a "body switch." The got what they wanted in the primes with the initial f/1.8 S lenses, which have now extended to 20mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm focal lengths. Some might put the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 S VR in this category, as well. Price isn't too high, but neither is pricing in this group what you'd call bargains, either. 
• Z8 and Z9 users — the top group of camera users have been targeted with exceptionally good, fast primes: the not-yet-released 35mm f/1.2 S, the 50mm f/1.2 S, the 85mm f/1.2 S, and the 135mm f/1.8 S Plena. These lenses command top prices, but deliver phenomenal imagery that is likely to still be seen when these higher resolution cameras get megapixel bumps. 

To some degree, the same can be said for zoom lenses (wide angle, mid-range, telephoto), though we have more missing choices there.

Building a full line of lenses for a mount is a long-term project, not one that gets done quickly. Nikon tackled higher capability lenses first, while Sony in the original FE push tackled the lower end. Now the trend is mostly reversed, with the latest Sony FE primes being mostly high end and Nikon now filling in the lower line. Next up in that lower line probably ought to be an 85mm f/1.4, though some might say 24mm or 28mm should be next. 

Nikon doesn't have an easy job now. The Chinese lens makes, taken together, have made a huge dent in the autofocus prime lens market with very good optics at reasonable prices. Long term, I don't think that bodes well for too many more lower-cost Nikkor primes coming. My advice to the Nikkor team would be to fill out the missing middle and high end lenses quickly (both prime and zoom) before the Chinese manage to get there. 

Nikon management set an attach rate goal—number of lenses sold per body—at 2.0 some time ago. They finished the previous year at 1.56, slightly lower than the industry average. Their current year forecast is 1.59, which doesn't seem to indicate much progress is being made towards the stated goal. 

Frankly, I don't see them hitting their target, ever. Eight lenses a year is basically the top end of what Nikon has managed in the digital era (if we ignore one year when the Nikon 1 CX lenses distorted the numbers briefly). So far this year we've had three lens introductions, though I currently expect at least three, and possibly four more. But at that low number of new choices, Nikon would have to hit a couple of incredible home runs at very reasonable pricing to boost lens attachment rate. As the 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR proved, even when you have that home run lens, you might not be able to produce enough to change the attach rate. 

One thing people ask me is where we are in Nikon's transition from DSLR to mirrorless. My answer tends to surprise them: we're fully in the mirrorless era now.

As if to emphasize that, the French site Phototrend published an article describing what the Canon, Nikon, and Sony professional services had brought to the Paris Olympics. For Nikon, it looks like this:

Look closely at those numbers (orange is DSLR, blue is mirrorless): 6.7% DSLR bodies, 93.3% mirrorless bodies. While I won't graph it, a similar situation occurred with lenses, though F-mount lenses did a little better than F-mount bodies, mainly because lenses like the 120-300mm f/2.8E don't exist in the Z-mount yet (I'm stunned that Nikon didn't have something ready in this space, as that's perhaps the most common focal lengths used, and you need fast apertures, as some of the venues depend too much on natural or already existing light and I'm hearing from my friends already that the lighting is subpar in many venues).

If the Nikon-using professionals and agencies covering the Olympics were mostly bringing their DSLRs with them, they'd want way more DSLR support than what Nikon NPS brought to Paris. 

The above data tracks well with my observations about Nikon-using pros: once they saw the advantages of mirrorless and the Z9 came out, almost all of them moved within the next year. 

I've gotten a lot of pushback on one thing I've written that relates to this in a parallel manner: that Nikon's biggest issue with the Z System is that it has nothing specific to offer the remaining D70, D80, D90, D7xxx (and even D3xx/D500) users. As far as I can tell, the biggest Nikon-owning group that hasn't already moved to mirrorless lives in this middle-ground space. Their current choices are to essentially downgrade to a Z50/Zfc, or to move to full frame via a Z5/Z6/Zf. Most of the ones that I talk to who are still in this category believe that neither choice is enough to get them to open up their wallets. Also, many who did decide to move to mirrorless ended up with a Fujifilm, OMDS, or Sony body, because Nikon doesn't make what they want.

Nikon needs a better plan in the current DX/FX gap. And yes, they also need to move more F-mount lenses to Z-mount (e.g. 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5, 16mm f/2.8, 120-300mm f/2.8E and 180-400mm f/4E TC, all of which are needed at an event such as the Olympics but required an FTZ this time around).

Today I posted my review of the Nikon Z6 III, as well as made my Complete Guide to the Nikon Z6 III available for purchase. I was able to get these two things done earlier than usual because NikonUSA lent me a pre-release version of the camera to get started with (I've since replaced it with a copy I bought, which I used to verify my findings). 

Some of you probably want the short version (there's no short version of my books ;~), so here goes:

The Z9 established new mirrorless-only technologies that have now been brought down to three other cameras, the Z8, the Zf, and now the Z6 III. There a small differences in performance between the latter two and the earlier two, mostly centered around autofocus, and which derive from the slower image sensors of the Z6 III and especially the Zf. Other than that, Nikon seems to be bringing pretty much the full set of features and performance well downward in their lineup. 

So, the question you'll have is probably this: how much autofocus performance difference? For most things, you probably won't notice any difference. It's only when you get to extreme action and extreme wildlife (small BIF) that they start to show up. If you need ultimate performance, get a Z8 or Z9 and expect to pay for that (in size and weight as well as price). If you don't photograph extreme action, both the Zf and Z6 III work just fine and carry over all of the Z9 goodness. 

Some of you will wonder about how much you give up with the lessor cameras. Less than you probably think. I'm perfectly happy with the Z6 III photographing wildlife, including small birds in flight. It's just that every now and again the Z6 III might trip up where my Z8 doesn't. On the flip side, the Z6 III can have an infinite buffer, so some will see that "every now and again" because they're mashing the shutter release for long periods of time. 

The real news is that the Z6 III is very close to the Z8 and Z9 in focus performance, and the original Z6 and Z6 II were not, nor did they have particularly great or extensive subject detection. I proved several times that you could, with care in settings and handling, photograph sports and moving wildlife with the Z6 and Z6 II. I won't need to prove that to you with the Z6 III, as in most cases you're going to find it remarkably close to the Z8. Ignorably close.

Which leaves the measurbator's lament going around the Internet about the Z6 III: it isn't a dynamic range champion. Well, first of all, compare it properly against the Canon R6 Mark II and Sony A7 Mark IV. The Z6 III will happily photograph for as long as you hold the shutter button without losing anything in dynamic range, while if you want the fastest shutter speeds out of an R6 Mark II, you're going to see noticeable—and I mean noticeable—degradation of image quality. Meanwhile, the Sony chugs along at a max of  10 fps to keep its dynamic range up. 

Not that the Z6 III is a slouch. 11.5 stops at base ISO is plenty enough dynamic range, and at ISO values from 800 to 25600 I measure the results as slightly better than the Z6 II it replaces (more data integrity, no color shift, less contrast blockage, etc.). 

Overall, the Z6 III is a pretty remarkable little camera. A bag-friendly middleweight that punches above its class. Which is why I gave it a Highly Recommended. 

It seems that there’s just one question I can’t seem to shake, as it just keeps showing up over and over in my In Box (and on Internet fora, for that matter).

What’s the question?

Some form of the “is the X lens with a teleconverter (TC) a good substitute for the longer Y lens?” 

The answer is invariably “not really.” 

First, why does this question keep coming up? Well, it’s basically due to economics. In almost all cases, X+TC is cheaper than Y without TC. Some people do ask the question the proper way, which is “can I save money by buying the X+TC over the Y?” Yes, you can. But you also want to know what you might give up when you do that, and the answer to that is always “some optical quality.” While this is less of a problem today than it was with yesterday’s TCs, you'll still see a loss, and usually a clearly observable loss.

The more devious versions of the question are actually a statement that goes like this: “I’m using the X+TC and I can’t see any difference versus what I see others getting from the Y.”

Which brings us to the second reason why the answer is “not really.” Again, I’m an “optimal capture, optimal processing” kind of guy (my pronoun is optimum ;~). Pretty much always the X+TC is not optimal. Just how unoptimal it is varies, but generally you’re going to lose some edge acuity, which you’ll probably try to get back via sharpening. So: not optimal capture, not optimal processing (the act of sharpening starts moving those pixel values in ways that can be detected, sometimes even in just casual view). 

The “I can’t see a difference” construct is one you need to be careful about trusting. If you don’t know the person making that statement and they haven’t established enough credibility so that you would trust their assertion, then you should immediately discount this kind of statement. Seeing a difference as opposed to testing to reveal a difference are very different things. Those of us who value our credibility do both. If we think we see something, we test to verify that what we thought we saw is true. 

Underlying all this teleconverter discussion is another factor: we are all at a different stage of our photographic ability. When you just start out, you don’t notice much. The fact that smartphone camera quality is gushed about is a good example of that: at the lowest common denominator level—both viewer ability and the restricted resolution/size of social media—the results look better than a lot of alternatives (film, instant photography, smartphone, etc.). Particularly when you also consider that focus doesn’t have to be quite so precise given the often larger depth of field of some of those other captures. 

As you get better, what you can see gets better and you start to see issues. Or at least you become affected by them (e.g. you might not know why you don’t like what you’re seeing, but the issue rose to the level where you’re aware of something being wrong, even if you don’t know what it was that caused it). So you come to the Internet asking questions. And immediately have to understand that some answers you’ll get are correct, some are misleading, and some are wrong ;~). 

If you keep progressing in photographic ability, smaller and smaller things start to become important in your work. One of those will be edge acuity in telephoto use. And that’s where the teleconverter (TC) becomes important to understand. I’ve seen good TCs and bad ones, but I’ve not seen a teleconverter ever improve a lens’ performance, only weaken it when it comes to contrast, resolution, and chromatic aberration. The contrast loss comes from additional air/glass elements, the resolution loss and chromatic aberration increase come from taking an image “in air” and altering it. 

Whether you can see the impacts a TC has on a lens or not is pretty much fully dependent upon the level of training and photography you’ve achieved. Virtually every professional has and sometimes uses a TC, but only because there’s no other answer to what they’re trying to achieve. Almost always, that same pro will simply use the right lens for the photographic problem if they have it available. The lenses that have built-in teleconverters—400mm f/2.8 TC VR S and 600mm f/4 TC VR S in the Z world—have us using the TC mostly as convenience (not having to change lenses), but their TC is also designed in conjunction with the lens itself so it does a bit better with understanding the “in air” image and changing it, as the designers know exactly what it is they’re changing. Generic TCs don’t have that knowledge, so don’t perform quite as well. 

I’m not a fan of using a TC to solve a “reach” problem. But I understand why a TC is desirable: it costs far less than a bigger lens, and you can’t get closer to your subject. Just understand that neither of those things is optimal. You’re taking a shortcut. If you want to achieve the same results as those that don’t take those shortcuts, you’ll have to address both things at some point.