[Music] Greetings everyone as my patreon Supporters will know from my recent Video for them I absolutely love pancake Lenses so it's great to see Nikon's First proper full-frame pancake option For their new Zed Mount mirrorless Camera system the z26 millimeter F 2.8 It's available for somewhat expensive Price of 500 or 500 pounds here in the UK and I'd like to thank Nikon very much For loaning me this lens for a couple of Weeks although as usual this is a Totally independent review aside from The lenses very thin size and low weight Being an attraction that 26 millimeter Focal length is also pretty interesting Being lovely and wide the maximum after Of f 2.8 is only what you can typically Expect of most pancake lenses that are This wide but it still enables you to Shoot in Darker situations and get out Of focus backgrounds when you move in Closer to your subject overall the lens Could make itself really useful full on Your camera for all kinds of everyday Photography the lenses body is mostly Made of plastic although it is based on A metallic mount with a weather sealing Gasket a nice touch the lenses only Control point is a plastic control ring That turns very smoothly and can be set To adjust manual focus or set in your Camera's menus to change other settings
When manually focusing there is just a Little bit of a lag with the Focus motor But it is responsive enough just about The lens also exhibits a fair bit of Focused breathing as you can see here The lenses autofocus motor is also not a Strong point it moves just averagely Quickly and lets you know about this With an audible whirring noise it does At least work accurately however you Can't fix filters onto the front of the Lens directly but it does come with a Thin little plastic Hood which does have A 52 millimeter filter thread a slip-on Cap covers that on the front overall the Build quality is nice nice and solid Here although that autofocus motor is a Little old school okay image quality I'll be testing the lens today on a Nikon z7 with its full frame 45 Megapixel sensor in the camera Corrections are turned on at F 2.8 in The middle of the image right away we See razor sharpness and excellent Contrast over inner Corners sharpness is Now just good but contrast is way down With some ghosting on contrasting edges Even with in-camer corrections these Corners are quite dark also stop down to F4 and F 5.6 for small improvements in Contrast but even at f8 or f11 Corner Sharpness is still good but not great Stop down as far as F16 and the image Becomes much softer due to diffraction
Overall while image quality is always Fantastic in the middle Corner image Quality never gets beyond the dizzying Height of just good Okay let's turn off Corrections and see About vignetting and distortion on a Full frame camera by shooting in raw Without Corrections unfortunately we see A lot of it strong Barrel Distortion and Very dark Corners at F 2.8 at F4 and F 5.6 vignetting is reduced but still There so those are some quite serious Problems and with the vignetting issue Even when using in-camera Corrections You will still see some darker Corners Now the lenses minimum Focus distance is A rather nice 20 centimeters getting you Fairly close to your subject here the Good news is that even at F 2.8 close-up Image quality remains fantastically Sharp in the center of your images with Great contrast let's see how well the Lens works against Bright Lights flaring Is fairly low here although bright Lights do cause a little loss in Contrast when directly in the frame and While we're working on a dog let's take A look at coma levels at F 2.8 coma Smearing is moderately stronger here Stop down to F4 for a dramatic Improvement though and at F 5.6 it's all Gone let's zoom out now and look for Sunstars they only really begin to Emerge at F16 as you can see in the
Corners there and they're not very Strong Now let's see about the quality of this Lenses pocket you have to get pretty Close to your subject to get out of Focus backgrounds here but when you do They look lovely and soft to me although They do get a little more busy in Transitional areas and finally related To toboca comes longitudinal chromatic Aberration at F 2.8 it's really strong As you can see here at F4 it's reduced And at F 5.6 it's gone you can also Observe some Focus Shift here the focal Point moves backwards noticeably as you Top the lands down overall well this is A rare example of a lens that I actually Kind of enjoyed using but which doesn't Offer great image quality especially for The rather high price you're paying for It for your 500 you're getting a really Fun little lens with great sharpness in The middle of your images but the Corners of your images display a number Of quite serious problems which is a bit Of a pain on such a wide angle optic All right I hope you all found that Useful I love testing out all these Camera lenses and I like doing it in a Standardized way so you can compare them All for yourselves special thanks to my Patreon supporters who make a big Difference to keeping these videos going And who get all kinds of exclusive bonus
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