First test
PRICE: £529
NIKON.CO.UK
This tiny pancake prime appears to be an ideal companion for the travelling photographer – but is it simply covering old ground? Nikon Z 26mm f/2.8
cover this focal length. So the first question is: what is it for? It’s the Z 26mm f/2.8’s design that really marks it out. With a pancake build, this lens is the most portable Nikon Z series lens yet released, meaning obvious applications for street, travel and landscapes where a lot of trekking is required. I tested it with a Z 7II body, where it can be repurposed as an almost- standard 39mm f/2.8 in the camera’s 19.5-megapixel crop mode. Attaching the optic, its size benefit soon becomes obvious. At 23.5mm long, it extends only around as far as the body’s grip, making it very pocket-friendly – the 125g weight is scarcely noticeable. The barrel has only a control ring which can be set to manual focus or functions like exposure compensation or aperture setting. There are no buttons and
the lens’ minuscule hood needs to be fitted in order to attach 52mm filters. In some respects, this makes handling quite unusual compared to longer lenses. I had to adapt my grip a little but it’s not uncomfortable, and because there’s so little of it, the camera doesn’t feel unbalanced. The 26mm f/2.8 also proved to be a very useful lens. Primes have a habit of focusing the mind, and this moderate wide-angle is a good fit for lots of subjects. I carried only this lens on several landscaping trips where it gave a pleasingly natural view. It is wide enough for scenics, but doesn’t distort perspective in the way much shorter lenses do. The look doesn’t scream durability, but it has weather sealing around the barrel and moving parts, as well as a metal lens mount. It certainly stood up to light rain, mist and sea spray
TESTED BY KINGSLEY SINGLETON
OCCASIONALLY, LENSES ARE released that cause a bit of head- scratching. Nikon’s Z 26mm f/2.8 is a good example. Z mount already has full-frame Nikon options, including a 24mm f/1.8 and two 28mm f/2.8 primes, plus four f/2.8 zooms that “PRIME LENSES HAVE A HABIT OF FOCUSING THE MIND, AND THIS IS A GOOD FIT FOR LOTS OF SUBJECTS”
when I used it, but that doesn’t mean you can be careless. Adding to its skill set, the 26mm f/2.8 focuses down to around 20cm, which gives some decent close-ups and allows for a lot of visual texture in your photography. F/2.8 provides good separation at – or close to – that distance, but while its bokeh is smooth and without colour artefacts, there are a bevy of faster lenses out there if you want greater depth- of-field control. The f/2.8 is more helpful keeping shutter speed up in low-light shots, but there’s no image stabilisation, so you’re reliant on having that in-camera. AF performance was good, if not excellent. It focuses near to far quickly, but without the ‘snap’ of Nikon’s more sport-targeted lenses. That said, it worked perfectly with the Z 7II’s eye tracking mode. At no point did I find focusing a problem, but the motor was unusually loud, which won’t suit street or candid work. I also noticed some focus breathing – again, not a problem for general use, but it does force minor cropping when focus stacking. Optically, the lens performed rather well for its size. I’ve used many pancakes that might as well be pinhole lenses, but the 26mm f/2.8 gave good sharpness wide open in the centre, improving to peak around f/5.6. At f/2.8, there’s a clear difference between corner and centre
SPECS › Type Full-frame (Nikon FX) › Focal length 26mm › Aperture range F/2.8-16 › Lens construction
8 elements in 6 groups (including 3 aspherical) › Lens coatings Nano Crystal and fluorine › Angle of view 79° (full-frame, FX), 57° (APS-C, DX) › Focusing Auto, manual › Internal focusing No › Focus limit switch No › Minimum focus 20cm › Maximum magnification 0.19x › Image stabilisation No › Filter size 52mm (via lens hood) › Diaphragm 7 blades, rounded › Dimensions (dxl) 70x23.5mm › Weight 125g › Contact nikon.co.uk sharpness – this again evens up by the middle apertures. The lens also vignettes quite heavily at the widest apertures – I measured this at about two stops, despite Nikon’s ‘baked-in’ corrections. Some level of light fall-off seemed to persist until about f/11. From the test images I took, fringing was negligible. PN
Verdict As a walkaround lens, the Z 26mm f/2.8 performed really well. Its size and weight are a real advantage, granting a genuinely pocket- friendly set-up, the focal length is very useful and, optically, it gives good results – though not in the league of more expensive S-Line lenses like the Z 24mm f/1.8 S. Its price is a challenge compared to the also small – and half the price – Z 28mm f/2.8, but that lens lacks weather sealing, a metal mount and some of the 24mm’s sharpness. If you want a small lens, you might be advised to go for the 28mm, but if you need the smallest lens, this is the one. PROS Very small and light, good centre sharpness, weather sealed CONS Price, AF noise, mixed corner sharpness
SECOND NATURE The pancake design makes your entire set-up truly pocket-sized, and the 26mm focal length offers good coverage of a variety of subjects – making this a fantastic lens for the photographer on the move
38 Photography News | Issue 107
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