Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S

£1129/$1297 A stop slower but half the price

For full-frame mirrorless shooters with a Nikon Z-series camera, the main choice of landscape zoom is between this lens and the Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S. The latter is spectacular and has a faster aperture, but the Z 14-30mm costs half the price and has a lot going for it.

Thanks to a retractable design, the Z 14-30mm is quite compact at just 89x85mm and weighs a mere 485g, yet matches its bigger sibling for max viewing angle. As an S-line lens, it’s well-built and features four aspherical elements, four ED elements, Nano Crystal Coat and a fluorine coating on the front element, as well as multiple weather-seals. A key advantage over the Z 14-24mm is that the filter thread is a much more common 82mm.

Performance

Lab-tests don’t tell the whole story when it comes to any lens, especially wide-angle optics. The Z 14-24mm looks better on paper, based on very close-range test charts, but the Z 14-30mm holds its own in real-world shooting, delivering superb corner-tocorner sharpness.

N-photo verdict

As a compact yet high-performance lens, the Z 14-30mm ticks all the right boxes for landscape photography.

Sharpness

Lab-test results look very good rather than entirely great but, in real-world shooting, the Z 14-30mm is super-sharp.

Fringing

There’s only minimal colour fringing wide-open, and even less when stopping down to narrower apertures.

Distortion

It’s not a distortion-free lens but it comes extremely close, with only negligible barrel distortion.