Nikon Z 24-200 Super Zoom

Before this lens, I have tried a few earlier Nikon super zooms, in the F mount. I didn't care for the 18-200mm DX at all, and I even bought a 28-300mm AF-S VR, which turns out to be unsharp at 300mm. Recently, I have heard pretty decent reviews on the 24-200, and I took advantage of the rebate in May. Since then, I have gone on two separate one-week trips along the US West Coast. This lens turns out to be quite good from 24mm to 200mm, although 200mm max f6.3 is still a severe limitation under dimmer light.

 

I posted the following image to Nikon Wednesday earlier, at 29mm.

 

 

 

@ 200mm and then cropped

 

 

 

And I took a picture of this sign by a swimming pool. This is at the pixel level, 100% crop. Sharpness is quite good at 200mm, wide open at f6.3. You can literally read the fine prints. Chromatic aberration is under control as well.

 

 

 

I also went whale watching and captured this short, 5-second video with the 24-200 and the Z6. Sorry about the shaky video as the sea was really rough that day:

 

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Edited June 23, 2021 by ShunCheung

I also went whale watching and captured this short, 5-second video

I've been twice and have zero to show for it.

I've been twice and have zero to show for it.

I have gone whale watching in Monterey perhaps 20 or so times, all within the last 20 years. Perhaps 4, 5 times have been really good. In these days my standard camera for whale watching is an FX body with the 80-400mm AF-S VR zoom, and now a Z body with the 24-200 for video.

 

On the East Coast, I have gone once in Cape Cod in Massachusetts and once in New Jersey. Those were disappointing trips. But that is another story.

The quality of the images is very impressive Shun. The lettering in the swimming pool sign is quite sharp. I also have a 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 G lens which I haven't used in a few years because of the lack of sharpness.

Sorry about the shaky video as the sea was really rough that day:

Not meant as a criticism, but i wonder what the 70-200mm 2.8 VR etc, (at the long end) would be like, video wise, by comparison?

 

Are the claimed VR 'benefits' about the same?

 

I guess, reach wise, the 24-200mm is a combined 24-70mm 2.8 + 70-200mm 2.8, but half the weight and volume!!

 

I would have thought the IBIS and lens VR combined would have done better, but I guess it was very rough! I'd have lost my breakfast....:(

 

Powered gimble next-time....:cool:

It's nice to see progress in this type of wide zoom-range lens. I still feel that the clarity of photos from narrower-range zooms is better but still, this type of a lens has its place and it seems to be quite good.

 

The breach video is impressive as well. I'm wondering what type of a rig would be able to stabilize such video? Or does it start with a bigger boat :-)

For all of my whale breaching images and video, I actually zoom to about 100mm or so with plenty of room around the actual image because I had no idea from where the whale would emerge from underwater. All of them are cropped afterwards, as it is more important to capture the action rather than zooming in beforehand and risk cutting half of the whale off or even missing it altogether.

 

I have seen image stabilizing video software that does a pretty good job in post-processing to stabilize videos. Essentially it crops maybe 10% from the edge of the video and performs "IBIS" in editing. The video I saw was from downhill skiing and it does a very good job smoothing out the bumps. Not sure how good a job it can do for my video since the boat was in really rough water.

 

Clearly VR in the 24-200 and IBIS inside the Z6 were not able to counter such serious instability.