Photography News 74

First test

PRICE: £8299

NIKON.CO.UK

Buy this lens and you’ll get super-shallow depth-of-field and shoot-in-the-dark light-gathering abilities, but also a letter from your bank manager Nikon Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct

SPECS

› Format Full-frame (Nikon FX) › Mount Nikon Zmount › Construction 17 elements in ten groups › Special lens elements 4 ED elements, 3 aspherical elements › Coatings Nano Crystal Coat, ARNEO Coat, fluorine coat › Filter size 82mm › Aperture range f/0.95-f/16 › Diaphragm 11 blade rounded design › Angle of view 40° 50’ (FX format), 27° 20’ (DX format) › Distance scale Yes, electronic › Depth-of-field scale Yes, electronic › Image stabiliser No › Tripod collar Yes (fixed) › Lens hood Yes, HN-38 supplied › Weather-sealed Yes › Dimensions (lxd) 153x102mm › Weight 2000g › Contact nikon.co.uk › Internal focus No › Manual focus Yes › Min focus 50cm › Focus limiter No

much the equivalent of 85mm, so well suited to even frame-filling portraits. But this is a manual focus-only lens, so the first question is, ‘How do you hope to get anything sharp at f/0.95?’ It’s a valid one. Focusing at a comfortable 1m from a portrait subject, the depth- of-field is about 2mm, which is less than the length of an eye lash. And if you’re shooting handheld, you’ll both be moving, even if you don’t know it. Of course, it’s not always about using the lens at its widest, but if you have the option, you’ll be expecting to use it. Actually, I did not find focusing the lens that difficult, even wide open. Yes, it’s a hit andmiss affair, and would be way more accurate if you were able to use the Z 7’s eye-tracking AF, but there is assistance from the camera. Using focus peaking and/or magnification through the EVF is vital, and shooting in high-speed drive mode increases your chances, too. And using the Focus Assist mode, the AF reticle will go green when it thinks you’ve got it right. Shooting further off, for instance, framing subjects full length, also increases your chances, and the results look superb with a real 3D look, even in cluttered surroundings. The only time I really struggled was in shadow, as the focus peaking is unclear then. The other factor making focusing more accurate is the manual focus ring. It has a huge throw, turning through almost 360°, so adjustments can be made with great precision. I foundmyself much less likely to push past the point of focus with this lens than any other I’ve used. Still, with the super-wide maximum aperture, it’s not all about shallow focus. Realistically, combined with the Z 7 or Z 6’s ISO performance and in-body image stabilisation, you can shoot handheld in very low-light conditions. I was shooting low-light portraits in an unlit garden well after sunset. With f/0.95, I was getting 1/100sec at ISO 400, whereas with even an f/1.8 lens you’d be looking at around 1/25sec. Generally, I found the lens’s handling excellent. Yes, it’s 2kg, and quite large, but it’s not much of an increase in weight on a 70-200mm f/2.8. For a lens I imagined should come with a sherpa tomove it for you, it really didn’t feel all that heavy tome. That said, I found it less comfortable to use in vertical framing due to the lack of a vertical grip with shutter release on the Z 7.

You’re probably not going to buy this lens. And Nikon probably knows that, too. Its Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct is really a ‘halo’ product, designed as much to showwhat the company’s recent full- frame mirrorless Zmount is capable of, as it is for actual photography. That said, it is a wonderful, if somewhat demanding, thing to use, and a product of the highest quality. It also costs £8299, hence the bit about not buying it. We

tried one out on a Z 7 body across a range of subjects. The headline feature of the Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct, which traces its inspiration from the Nikon 58mm f/1.2 Noct of the seventies is, of course, its f/0.95 maximum aperture, a setting that promises – and delivers – exceptional subject separation. At 58mm, it’s a little wide for close-ups, though switching to the Z 7’s DX cropmode, it gives pretty

ON TEST

To check sharpness in the centre and edges, we shot a flat subject about 10m off throughout the aperture range. The 58mm f/0.95 proved excellent, even wide open, hitting a peak around f/2

ABOVE Working wide open gives stunning results. Shot in the Z 7’s DX crop mode for an equivalent of 85mm

Verdict The Z58mm f/0.95 Noct is a wonderful thing to experience, but it’s not somethingmost of us would even contemplate owning. It’s far better rented for a special occasion. Its shallow depth-of-field and light- gathering attributes are amazing, it’s sharp as hell and, despite beingmanual focus, not that hard to use. But if you want superfast apertures, there’s also a Z50mm f/1.2 on the horizon, and though that will likely still be pricey, it won’t be £8299.What’s more, the existing Z 50mmandZ85mm f/1.8s are amazingly sharp, and the latter will give you a similar shallowness, albeit not as close up or with the same perspective.

The barrel also has a function button, which – this being manual focus – I found best set to give a 100% view in the EVF. Like the Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S, there’s an OLED screen with info giving (among other things) a depth-of-field scale. I didn’t make much use of this, but it’s not a bad option to have. There’s also a low-profile tripod connection, to cut out camera movement, though it needs a plate to be added, and can’t be rotated as on most lenses that have one. For over £8k, youmight have thought a detachable Arca-Swiss foot would be supplied. In terms of optical quality, the 58mm f/0.95 is as good as you’d expect. It has excellent sharpness in the centre wide open, where it’s also very good at the edges. The centre sharpness hits a peak at f/2, and only really starts tailing of at f/11 and beyond. The best centre-to- edge sharpness seems to be around f/4. The maximum f/16 is still very good though. In terms of sharpness at the equivalent settings, it should be noted that the Z 58 f/0.95 isn’t discernibly better than the Z 50mm f/1.8. The lens showed little or no fringing, and also controlled flare well, so no loss of contrast was noted when shooting into the light. It showed no particular distortion either, while the 11 blade, rounded aperture gives smooth out-of- focus areas, and pleasing flat disks when shooting defocused points of light, albeit these become a bit squashed at the frame edges, as you’d expect. KS

F/0.95

F/1.4

F/2

F/2.8

F/2

F/4

F/5.6

F/8

F/11

PROS It’s brilliant CONS It’s really, really expensive

42 Photography News | Issue 74

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