Nikon Z System News and Commentary
Santa Claus Was Late
I knew that Nikon was toying with a lens release, but it didn’t make the 2025 calendar and instead appeared today: the 24-105mm f/4-7.1 lens. This low cost (US$550) was designed to be a more versatile kit lens for the Z5II (and other lower-cost full frame cameras), and will appear as a bundle option with that camera for US$2200 sometime in the next month or two.
Good things and not-so-good things pepper a lens like this. The good is that it is still weather sealed (though not S), is very lightweight (350g), and provides up to 1:2 close up capability. The not-so-good is that it doesn’t have VR and doesn’t come supplied with the HB-93B lens hood. And, of course, the price is probably the most good thing of all, a relatively low.
The published MTF looks “okay” for the wide angle side—decent through the DX corners—and actually "very good" on the telephoto side, and overall better than the 24-200mm lens, so this new lens may become the preferred travel lens for many.
Changes for 2026
As usual with my end-of-year site updating, I've made a number of changes.
- Advertising and affiliate links have been removed. All tracking mechanisms have been removed (though I obviously have to capture information if you buy one of my books).
- Several articles got a mild update (e.g. Z System Upgrade Advice) to reflect current views. I also updated lists where appropriate (e.g. which camera/lenses have user service manuals).
- 2025 News/Views was moved into a sub-folder, as is my custom.
- I did not change prices that are listed in the specifications or reviews. Those prices now reflect "introductory" price. With instant rebates constantly fluctuating, and now price increases and tariffs added, the current price may be obviously different. I'm not yet sure what to do about that, so for the time being I'll continue using introductory pricing for everything.
- There's a new teleconverter FAQ.
In the course of working through every page on the site, I found 14 news/views articles that really should either be permanent articles on the site or used to update an existing article. I'm also aware of additional things that need updating (for instance, many of the charts, some reviews, etc.). However, most of those changes will probably wait until I complete the full site overhaul later this year.
Yes, I mean full site overhaul. The technology driving this site is no longer state-of-the-art, and there are things I'd like to do that aren't easy to do in the current form. So I'm (slowly) rewriting the site using Tailwind and other current technologies. However, that means I have to redo at least a thousand pages (I probably won't do it for older news). And as I redo those pages, I generally am doing a full edit and touch up on pretty much everything. It's a slow, onerous process, but the pay off should be big.