Greetings again everyone and today I'm Checking out Nikon's newest and hottest Portrait lens The Zed 135 mm f1.8 S Planner it's only for their Zed Mount Mirrorless cameras full frame or apsc And it cost an IW watering $2,500 or £2,700 here in the UK better value for Money States side I suppose but Expensive wherever you live I'd like to Thank Nick on UK for learning me a copy Of this new Auto lens for testing Although as usual this is a totally Independent review Nikon are touting This thing as being their premium Top-of-the-line portrait optic and they Claim that their design priorities were Sharpness low vignetting and circular Bcka free of ugly substructures with as Little cat eye shaping in the corners as Possible well we'll see about all that In just a minute the yellow planner Moniker is beautifully attched into the Side of the lens the name comes comes After the Latin word for a jar or space That's full and the implication is that This lens is a space that can be full of Its users creativity a little tenuous Perhaps but I do like the idea of Premium lenses being given classical Names and the kind of images any 135 mm F1.8 optic could give you are of course Completely epic in their separated and Nicely comast backgrounds and f1.8 also
Means you'll be shooting in Darker Situations with ease this lens is Big Naturally and at almost a kilogram or a Little over 2 lb you'll definitely know It's there on your camera But the lens Is mostly made of metal up to the focus Ring which makes it feel very tough and High quality surprisingly for such a Premium optic the lens is made in Thailand not Japan doesn't bother me but I know some photographers who are pretty Religious about their lenses being made In Japan a weather ceiling gasket Surrounds the rear mount and Nikon Advertised the lens is being sealed Against light weather conditions check Out the very large rear glass element Here apparently that is one of the ways Nickon are reducing vignetting and Improving the bker it could even be Providing an extra large image Circle Just imagine if necon were doing that Deliberately with a view to bring out a Medium format camera one day we can all Dream can't we then comes an automanual Focus switch followed by neon's Customizable control ring which in this Case is metall and turns very smoothly I'm not a fan of these control Rings Near the base of the lens I bump them And turn them too easily and mostly I Just end up disabling them the lens's Aperture mechanism features 11 rounded Iris blades on the side of the body we
Get a couple of extra function buttons And then the large rubberized manual Focus ring it turns fantastically Smoothly and the manual focus response Is a little slow but very precise as you Can see here the lens suffers from only A small amount of focus breathing sorry For the shaky footage I took this camera In the middle of a bit of a storm even My tripod was shaking the lens employs Two STM autofocus Motors they keep the Lens focusing quietly accurately and Relatively quickly as you can see here Although you might be able to get an Even faster performance out of a newer Model of necon camera towards the end of The lens we get a rubber ring that does Well nothing actually and then the front Filter size is 82 mm The Lens comes with A fairly large plastic Hood which clicks On positively with a locking button but It doesn't feel particularly high Quality the lens does not feature its Own image stabilization and that's about It Nikon's premium s line of lenses tend To be very expensive but have gorgeous Build quality and this thing is no Exception on either of those Counts so let's see about image quality I'll be testing it today on a nickon z7 With its 45 map fullframe sensor in Camera Corrections are turned on as Expected on such a lens straight from F1.8 it is razor sharp in the middle of
Your images over in the corners contrast Is ATT touch lower and to the truly Eagin we'll see that contrasting edges Aren't quite so well defined but frankly This is still an amazing performance Stop down to f2.8 and now the images Razor sharp from corner to corner with Truly excellent contrast the lens stays This sharp down to f11 where the effects Of defraction begin to take their toll Just a little and at F16 the lens is a Touch softer again however it's pretty Much 10 out of 10 for image quality here I don't think my z7 has ever been Happier well let's turn off in camera Corrections and take a look at Distortion and vignetting we do spot Some pincushion Distortion being Projected here but the good news is that Nickon have lived up to their promise And even at f1.0 8 there's almost no Noticeable vignetting stopped down to F2.8 and any darkness that was there in The corners is now totally gone the lens Has a very nice minimum Focus distance Of 82 CM bringing you nice and close to Smaller subjects which can be really Useful although it's not a macro lens The further good news is that image Quality at f1.8 is just as sharp close Up and we're not seeing any issues with Contrast or color fringing here either Nice let's see how the lens works Against Bright Lights now at f1.8 as you
Can see here some flaring is visible Although it's quite soft looking it's Sto down to f2.8 and it's greatly Reduced but still there and we see a Little glaring around the light source Itself now then B is this lens really All that Nikon a promising here well Almost yes out of focus backgrounds look Ridiculously gorgeous and smooth Specular highlights don't see any Outlining or weird onion pattern Substructures and Cat ey Boer shapes in The corners are much lower than any Other portrait lens of tested even at F1.8 giving those backgrounds a lovely Even feel a simply wonderful performance Here and finally related to Baka comes Longitudinal chromatic aberration so far The lens's performance has been Virtually perfect but here we do see a Small but noticeable amount of color Fringing on bcka Highlights it's not a Serious problem though stopped down to F2.8 and it's still there but at F4 it's Virtually gone so have nickon finally Made the portrait lens to end all Portrait lenses I'm tempted to say Yes Actually everything about this lens Baring its very high price tag will put A serious smile on your face it's a Virtually perfect optic and that is no Exaggeration it's possible to get 135 mm F1.8 lenses on other systems that are Cheaper than this and about as sharp
That's for sure but Nikon's efforts to Specially design this thing to have Excellent bcka have really paid off and That's where the lens stands out so if You're on friendly terms with your bank Manager then this lens certainly comes Highly Recommended wow what a gorgeous portrait Lens before anyone asks yes I did have To give it back to nickon unfortunately But hey it's better to have and lost Right thanks for watching and a special Thanks to all my supporters over on Patreon they get all kinds of exclusive Bonus content and a warm fuzzy feeling Inside for helping to keep these free Unsponsored lens reviews on the road Check it out in the description below And CIA for now Everyone
