Arrived 135mm f/1.8 S PLENA | Paving The FUTURE? | It's IMPORTANT To Me & Maybe You Too | Matt Irwin 

"They didn't arrive first at the mirrorless party, but when they arrived they really brought the party with them" Love this!

Matt, not only does your creativity, passion and skill set separate you from so many others but your willingness to share these attributes with others places you in another level. Thank you,

"I love what gear allows me to do." Couldn't have said it better ... well, I have tried to get that across and I think we're both on the same page with that sentiment. If money were no object, I'd make the Plena my first 135mm lens ever. Great work, Matt, showing us what you can create with this lens. Stellar!

Got my pre-order coming in for the Plena this week! I will now have both exotics! Plena, and Noct together for endless creative possibilities! Nikon glass is just killing it! Thanks for everything that you bring Matt!

I picked up mine on Friday. It’s such a beautiful lens!! I actually sold my 180-600mm lens to a colleague just prior to taking delivery of the 135mm because I just didn’t think I would use it very much. I’m not a wildlife photographer. It’s nearly identical to the 85mm f/1.2. There is a slight difference close to the mount, and there is a lens element VERY close to the mount, so you really need to take care when mounting and unmounting this lens.

You have made an absolutely brilliant statement about photography, showing the juxtaposition between people and the world around them, and also that of the built world versus the natural one.

Hello Mat , got my copy of the Plena 17/10/23. It simply Wowed me. Appreciate your content.

I like that you are passionate and keep things positive instead of complaining and highlighting negative things. keep up the great work.

Looks like a really great lens - I want one .. 🦘

Matt really appreciate the effort you go to, it certainly has inspired me to get out of my comfort zone subject wise and to push myself. Thanks for the inspiration.

Received yesterday and can’t wait to start creating! Great assessment of Plena! Agree 1000% looking forward to your beautiful images Matt! Best!🙏🏻

Nice, thanks! It’s great how you are emphasising Plena’s uniqueness... (“There Can be only One” Highlander 1986...)

Stellar video Matt! Your channel is one of the best on RU-vid! I really appreciate your hard work and content!

Hello Matt, Just enjoy the lens. It’s so good to see you happy.

I really like your enthusiasm. Keep up your work!

Another great video Matt, thank you, and well said.

Finally! Matt, you have eloquently said exactly what I have been trying to explain (without success) regarding purchasing new, cutting edge, lenses from Nikon. Yes, I continue to use my 40 year old Nikkor lenses when I want certain creative results, but their limitations prevent me from capturing many images that I have floating around in my mind. The new lenses remove those limitations and free my creativity to the point that all I have to do is "see" and create the image. I don't have to wonder if my Nikon gear can do it. It will do it. The 135 f1.8 Plena is in my hands and I cannot wait to push my boundaries with it. I am hoping that Nikon will take the success of the 85 f1.2 and the 135 f1.8 Plena lenses to the next level and offer a 105mm f1.2, and 200 f1.8 or f2. I think that the upcoming 35mm f1.2 will be astounding, but given Nikon's recent creations, I think that's what we all expect. Wonderful days to be a creative Photographer. Thanks, Matt!

Love your passion, Matty. Keep going, living vicariously through your vids. Got my Plena today, even though it is a big one, will accompany me on my frequent Asia travels, as the rendering on this is simply unique. Here’s hoping the upcoming 35mm will be a “Plena” too. Take it easy. Beano /Doreen

I shot the plena this weekend at the photo days in belgium, and was amazed at its performance. I don't know if this is just me living in a nikon-bubble, but I get the feeling that recently Nikon has done a lot of cool things compared to Canon and Sony. Sure, Canon has the new 10-20, but apart from that, they don't seem to do much remarkable these days.

First wedding with mine on Saturday. WooHoo.

Matt, thank you again for another great inspired video. I spent last Thursday and Friday with my Plena and thought about what you said as well as your images so that I could drive myself to try different things. The result was quite surprising, even I deleted hundreds of photos during post. Needless to say that the Plena’s sharpness and Bokeh were stunning, on both Z8 and Zf. I have not been using my Plena during the last few days as my Z 180-600mm arrived on the last Friday so I spent a lot of time yesterday and today deleting thousand of photos that I took at WTP on the weekend 🤪 Please keep videos coming, thank you 🙏

Τέλειο-Perfect!!!!!

Great Vid Matt - mine arrived direct from Nikon UK yesterday. I am also hoping to see more wider ultra high quality glass. 20mm f/1.2 next please (after the 35/1.2) and then ... well I have 6-8 more suggestions for ultra HQ glass. The great news for me is that I can use the Nisi lens hood on the Plena from my Z 14-24/2.8 S and so can just re-use my 112mm filters - same on the Z50/1.2 S. However, unlike the 85mm f/1.2 whose fitting is a couple of mm larger and so I have to use a stepping ring.

Another exciting video, we are two peas in the pod, I call myself a flaneur standing back in Melbourne catching the every day or night life , the world that isn't sharp or over saturated. The dark lost corners of our modern day life

Hi Matt, we are also getting those very high winds in the Redlands area of Qld. I enjoyed your video. Back years ago, before Zoom Lenses, the 135mm prime lens was a must-have lens, like the 28, 50 & 90mm for the 35mm film cameras. So it is so good to see such a quality lens produced by Nikon. Will I get it? I'm not sure at this present time. I love your passion and dedication to photography, with that comes creativity, in my opinion. Thaks Matt

You are so inspired, you made a video manifesto! 😂😂 My Zf and Plena are on their way! 👍🏾

it’s an exciting lens from Nikon. appreciate your take as always! hope to try it sooner than later

Hi Matt - Just got mine as well yesterday - haven't even been able to shoot with it yet, but very excited for my first shoot with it! Thanks for the quality content! -PD

I had the chance to photograph my granddaughters birthday party with my new plena on a Z 9 and a 2.8/24-70 on an other body. The look of the portraits are stunning.

Hello Matt. I picked up my lens last Saturday. The lens is awesome and the images are unique. It definitely “rocked my socks off”. Thanks for sharing and be safe.

Just bought this lens and skipped the Z8, still happy with my z6ii/7ii just have to work around its focusing shortcomings, but for a street portrait photographer, this lens is more for me and to how my subject’s and foreground/background plus the gorgeous Nikon magical rendition of images come’s to life..the end result is just amazing..glad i got this than the Z8👌

Imagine a 200 f/2 Plena. But is suppose that would be damn expensive.

It's official: you get my vote if there's ever a Nobel Prize in Photography! Thanks. for your efforts.

As you mentioned as a possibility in the video, I would really enjoy seeing how this lens performs against the 85mm f/1.2 in the hands of an artist such as yourself. Thanks!

Oooh, you are getting me excited, mine is in transit and might arrive by the end of the day or tomorrow morning! 🥳👍🏾🙏🏾. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇸🇪🇹🇹

Wow,you got the 1.8 !

Always interesting! How about a Z, 28mm 1.2?

I still go for my 105 f1.4 ED. It’s so buttery smooth paired with the Z8

I hope Plena is a surprise series of lenses. 135mm is out of my most-used range. Oooo….i cancelled my black Zf body only preorder as it’s taking too long. AND Sunset Orange Zf kit is coming tomorrow!! Can’t hardly wait.

Thanks for the channel, it’s very informative. If you had to choose between the 135mm 1.8 and the 85mm 1.2 which one would you choose? Talking both stills and vid opinions please 👍🏾

That DOF is crazy Matt! I own ZFc, Z7, and want to replace Z7 with the ZF now and of course the 135 f1.8 now ;)

matt - i am also a first mover because the potential is bigger. my scale down setup is z9 + backup Z f + tamron 35-150, plus the plena. thinking of only adding some small lens for travel and a wide angle - maybe 14-24 f2.8. Less is more …… i just sold all my Canon…..

Another great video Matt. What are your thoughts on shooting video on the z8 at the native resolution of 800iso. I know this would mean needing nd filters on these fast lenses even at night? Is there an Improvement in quality that’s discernible? Also I notice you don’t stick to the double frame rate shutter speed, is this overhyped? TIA

This lens, 135, 1.8 Plena is on my target list, I hope to upgrade to a Z7ll this year and that is one of the new lens i want to add. you enjoy it and looking for a video on its use.

Such a handsome devil and a movie star at that. Anxiously awaiting your first full length feature film...

The Plena will not replace my Sigma Art. But my Zf arrived today and wow am I impressed. I am still setting it up but it is a major step up. I will wait and see what the Z6iii is like but it will have to be something special to talk me out of getting a secoond Zf.

Hello Matt, your videos are not a review / presentation / whatever. They are a feeling. Well done! If you could keep just one, which one would pick? 85 1.2 or 135 1.8? For the longest time, when i had the D500 with the sigma 18-35 1.8 and the 50-100 1.8, i wanted a 135 1.8 in full frame. Now that i own a Z6ii with 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8, im leaning more towards the 85 1.2.

Eeeegad but I must have this lens! It has erased my WANT for the 85 1.2, for now (tho my lust remains to own both!). Did I hear that we can expect a Matt/Seth/Ricci reunion video soon? Here's hoping!

Hey Matt I’ve seen since I first found your channel how you’ve been working hard to build it . Second you’ve always stuck to your “style” of art . Shooting wide open or close to . Shooting at night with this shallow dof and keep showing it to folks . You’ve sold your channel as a Nikon faithful but not without experimenting with other brands and looks . The whole premise of the larger shallower Z mount is the plethora of adaptation it allows. From the beginning you , I and on this channel you’ve discussed this . Im glad to have been part of this journey with you standing behind a vision that at time’s almost seemed as it may fail . The Nikon Z mount lens direction has been a different path in many ways from Nikons past. They stuck pretty firm to the standard focal lengths from the past . But Nikon hasn’t always been about perfection of the image in the sense of image perfection but in rendering the “Nikon look” . That many times was about it’s rendering quality vs the perfection of image from side to side of the finished image . Now they have a “New Modern Nikon Look” it’s complex in it’s rendering and look in many different ways. They seem to have two different if now more lines of looks . And doing a very good job of building this new multi look into their lines . I’m glad to be part of the Nikon Z system and the journey you also are taking with it .

“Plena” is not set to be a series at least as far as the nomenclature is concerned. Marc at Nikon talking with Seth Miranda confirmed this.

Hi Matt, great video and I really apriciate your channel. I really like my Nikon gear and Nikon Plena might be on another level but... I think that lens wise Sony still may have the edge, at least for hobbyists like me. They have way more great 3:d party lenses and Tamron 35-150 is cheaper for Sony than Nikon and Sony 200-600 is 15% cheaper here in Europe than Nikon 180-600. And above that they have alot of other Tamron and Sigma lenses to choose from. I also think Nikon should have released The Z6III before the beautiful Zf to compete with the great Canon R6II (with flagship processor) and Sony a7IV, at least for all early adopters (I have a Z6). Nikon will of course release Z6III in the future but it is a long wait. Pär Nilsson.

I wonder if the 35mm 1.2 will be a plena...

Babes in the woods shooter in another YT channel test shot a pre-prod Plainah, and with flair demonstrated it's glare and flare in backlight. "It's almost perfect" - that's what she said. So there are no free lunches. Bring your matte, not lunch, boxes. The name "Plena" - as a US Nikon rep said in their YT, the pronunciation is "plaina" but if you say "plenna" Nikon san will not be mad with you - is a reminder of a lens design called Planar from the latest 1800s by famed Zeiss lens designer Rudolph. That Planar was a 6-element double Gaussian design with great optical qualities, but it suffered from glare and flare, so for decades a 4-element design "Tessar" was the preferred choice - until lens coatings became a thing and the Planar became the standard lens for the Hasselblad 500 series. The French have this saying "l'histoire se repète" meaning both "the story is repeated" and "history repeats itself"- or "here we go again". Babe also says "bock-keh" with the e as in let - not so difficult to punch the word "bokeh" into the simplest version of Google translate in a web browser set to Japanese>English and click the speaker icon (as latin alphabet text in the Japanese from box). The Japanese lady voice clearly says "boa keh". World literature has a role model of hero & sidekick in Don Quixote that was modified into Zorro (fictional character created in 1919 by writer Johnston McCulley and TV series started in 1957) and then again in Batman (created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in the 27th issue of the comic book Detective Comics on March 30, 1939 - for TV created and narrated by executive producer William Dozier as "the only situation comedy on the air without a laugh track". [...] ABC network for three seasons from January 12, 1966). Nippon Kogaku's word play got famous when they named themselves Nikon at times when Zeiss had a famed line of cameras called "Ikon" (since 1926) - the thought that Nikon was meant as Nippon Ikon probably led to a court case in Germany and the trade name Nikon was forbidden in Germany for considerable time, initially. Nippon Kogaku used the word "Nikon" and variants (e.g. Nikko, Nikkor) since 1946. Now the play with "Z" - if you never saw one, try to watch an episode of the Zorro TV series. My thoughts go out to the bit in Kentucky Fried Movie (1st) about people who like to live dangerously. On another level, some influencers have complained about Nikon's "S" class lenses about how difficult it is to get them to glare (generic haze, or contrast reduction, across the image) and flare (clearly visible shaped trails of light and aperture). The Nikon sphinx says nothing, but apparently has been influenced by Photoshop dimwits who cannot add glare or flare or both, in post..

I’m fascinated to see where Nikon is going…especially with video. Sony and Canon have produced pro level cinema products for years. Can Nikon compete? Do they want to in their own way? Thanks for the reviews of the Noct and Plena. The wedding videographer is one market and the film maker is another. I’d love to see these lenses in the hands of a cinematographer. Are these the Nikon cinematographers lenses? Is this just the beginning?

I agree with Mathew on this. I would say it is a great lens, but I would rarely use it. The 105mm is more my range. Anyone remember the 105mm f2 dc?

Can you compare it to sigma 135mm please?

Should I go for the Z 85mm f1.2 or the Z 135mm f1.8 Plena?

A lense I didn't Think I need , but I want one! I have the 85 1.8 So I don't need the 1.2 , this looks special , it'll be a while before I get it , maybe mid - end of 2024 , it's very expensive . I plan on the Tmaron 35-150 and the 180-600 first (damn 6000 USD in total ) But Yeah I hope the Plena is a line of 11 bladed apprature lenses for perfect Bokeh , so maybe we'll see a 105 Plena , 200 F2 plena , who knows...

Did you have a chance to try the 105 1.4 before? I really want to know how the two compare if that's possible! Maybe, if you have both, make a short comparison between the two, haha. If it isn't asking too much."

If all Nikon lens is like this Plena, I'm switching back.

It shocks me everytime that Australia gets cold and you guys own jackets 🤣

It’s nice that you could afford such a lens.

That's very expensive stuff for me, specially after having ordered the Z f. The Viltrox 75mm (112.5) is perfect enough and it is 1.2

Wait till sigma comes up with a DN version of their very fine 105mm f1.4.

Haha, after our chat today I went and ordered one. Anyone want to buy my F mount 200 f2 with Z9 dx that's what it will replace.

Nikon really seems to be ramping up the roll out of of really quality gear and again seems to have not only caught up but to me since the Z9 and every thing since is back in the lead. They will most likely never out sell Sony or Canon but thats probably not the goal of their business model and hi Matt it's so good to see you

So…Matt Irwin, what’s your favorite lens then?

Yikes! The price tag alone made me go forget about it. No one NEEDS it. shiny object really. It is amazing to me how many of the world's best photographs seem to come from past decades. It is in the eyes not the camera or lens. We love gear but this chasing of gear for gear's sake is getting insane. Fun but insane. Matt as usual is a salesman and nothing more. He's a real good one though.

Need to pick up trash before making video there !

Nothing wrong with complaining about crappy photography, but when you are showing zero images of your own then you are just babbling.