NIKON Z 28MM F/2.8 (SE)
Nikon’s Z 28mm lens is available in either ancient or modern styling – we prefer the former
There’s no shortage of fast wide-angle primes in Nikon’s prestigious S-line stable of Z-mount lenses, including 20mm, 24mm and 35mm options, all with an f/1.8 aperture rating. While they are pretty good, they are also relatively large and expensive lenses, especially the two with shorter focal lengths. The Z 28mm offers something completely different, with a much smaller, more lightweight build, a more modest f/2.8 aperture rating and two different style options. The basic one has the regular, modern Z-mount look and feel, whereas the ‘Special Edition’ is a retro beauty.
Demonstrating attention to detail, the texture of the SE version’s control ring, additional grip area and silver ring are recreated from Nikon’s archive of blueprints, stretching back to the days of classic AI Nikkor 35mm film lenses. The same goes for the fonts used for the lettering. Naturally, the lens looks at home on the Nikon Z fc, for which it’s available as a ‘kit lens’ and gives a more standard 42mm ‘effective’ focal length. Even so, it looks equally stylish on a fullframe Z-series body and the lens certainly isn’t a matter of style over substance.
The optical path includes two aspherical elements. You can assign the manual focus ring to various alternative functions when in autofocus mode, including stepless aperture control, which is useful when shooting video, as is the absence of focus breathing.
Although lightweight, the Nikon feels wellengineered. The mounting plate is made from high-grade plastic rather than metal but it’s robust and helps to keep the weight down to just 160g. Weather-seals are featured around the focus ring and the front end of the lens.
The Nikon proved sharper than the Canon lens in our tests and showed a little less colour fringing. Again, in-camera corrections are relied upon to combat vignetting and distortion, though the latter of those cannot be switched off. Overall though, it’s a lens that’s as capable as it is stylish.
There are plenty of wide-angle primes to choose from in Samyang’s range of E-mount autofocus lenses, also going by the name of Rokinon. They kick off with a 12mm F2 for APS-C format Sony mirrorless cameras, moving on to full-frame compatible 14mm F2.8, 18mm F2.8, 24mm F1.8 and 35mm primes in F1.4, F1.8 and F2.8 options.
As one of Samyang’s ‘Tiny’ series, the 18mm F2.8 is suitably compact, measuring just 64 x 61mm and, at a mere 145g, it’s the most lightweight lens in the group. That’s no mean feat, given its generous viewing angle of 100 degrees and the fact that it has a metal rather than plastic mounting plate.
Slim and sleek, the Samyang has no switches and a single control ring for manual focusing. Autofocus is taken care of by a now typical stepping motor. Unlike the Canon and Nikon lenses on test, the Samyang is supplied complete with a petal-shaped hood, which is reversible for compact stowage. Indeed, the lens is so small that it feels equally at home on Sony’s downsized APS-C mirrorless bodies, on which it has an ‘effective’ focal length of 27mm.
There’s some serious glass shoehorned into the small barrel. The total of nine includes three aspherical elements, three lowdispersion elements and two high refractive index elements. They all work to enhance sharpness and contrast while reducing colour fringing and distortion. Samyang’s Ultra Multi-Coating is applied to keep ghosting and flare down to reasonable levels.
The ‘Tiny’ lens doesn’t look imposing but does full justice even to Sony’s highestresolution full-frame cameras. Sharpness is awesome, even when shooting wide-open at f/2.8, and quite superb across the whole frame between f/4 and f/8.
Colour fringing is only slight but not quite as negligible as from the Tamron lens on test, when uncorrected. Compared with all other lenses in the group, barrel distortion is relatively minimal when uncorrected.
Not long ago, Tamron launched three wideangle primes for Sony mirrorless cameras. They have focal lengths of 20mm, 24mm and 35mm, and share an f/2.8 aperture rating and 67mm filter thread. As the widest of the trio, the 20mm gives a 94.5° degree viewing angle on full-frame cameras and feels like a 30mm prime on APS-C format bodies.
Wide-angle lenses are great for exaggerating perspective when you get in close and the Tamron enhances this with an uncommonly short minimum focus distance of just 0.11m. It leaps ahead of the other lenses on test in delivering a 0.5x macro magnification factor. This adds extreme close-up abilities to the lens’s portfolio. As usual, autofocus is powered by a stepping motor, called ‘Optimized Silent Drive’. This makes the most of Fast Hybrid AF and
Eye AF, featured in recent Sony cameras.
As with the Nikon and Samyang lenses on test, the Tamron has no switches or other onboard controls apart from the manual focus ring. The physical length of the lens remains fixed and the filter thread doesn’t rotate during focusing, but the front optical element moves forward within the barrel as you reduce the focus distance. Even so, ghosting and flare are kept at bay by the supplied petal-shaped hood.
The optical design is based on ten elements in total, including one aspherical element and three LD (Low Dispersion) elements. Tamron’s BBAR (Broad-Band Anti-Reflection) coating is applied and the front element has a fluorine coating. The inclusion of weatherseals is a luxury, considering the price.
Sharpness is almost as good as from the Samyang lens on test, and the Tamron is sharper towards the edges and corners of the image frame when shooting wide-open at f/2.8. Colour fringing is negligible, but the Tamron relies on in-camera correction for barrel distortion. Even so, overall performance and image quality are spectacular for a wideangle lens of this size, weight and price.