Nikon Zf Ultralight Landscape Photography Rig and lens review plus on location on coastal Maine! 

Thank you so much! It’s a great set up for sure. You will love it I’m confident!

Thank you for watching! I’m glad you are enjoying my work.

Thank you so much! Welcome to the channel. Glad to see I've got some Australian viewers!

Yes, and for the money, everyone should have them! Thanks for watching!

Yep. It’s a great hood! Not sure why it’s no longer in production.

Yes, that’s a good lens. It’s also almost 100 dollars more, weighs twice as much and is twice as large. Image quality really isn’t any better. Metal lens mount doesn’t matter as far as I can tell. It also doesn’t have the Nikon look. Either way, as I said, that’s a nice lens but apples to oranges. Thank you for watching. I appreciate your input.

Viltrox is great but people should really stop worry about plastic lenses. They can take fare amount of abuse out in the field, the mount is durable enough and if you change these lenses a lot they will less likely wear the mount of the camera itself... Also if something goes wrong replacing them with a new one doesn't break the bank...

Lenses always help. Any stray light coming in at an angle, even on modern glass can cause ghosting, flair and desaturation of colors. So yes, they are definitely a must. Not all the time but when you need them, you need them. Thanks for watching!

Well, the 26 is a decent lens however you get the weather sealing but you also lose the high image quality you get on the 28mm. Thats the tradeoff. If you want the best image quality, I'd say use something to keep the water off the camera. Thats what we always used to do. This whole ultra weather sealed thing is pretty new so water getting in has always been a fear up until very recently. Then again, I get that you would like the weather sealing. If it were me, I'd be hard pressed to pay the kind of money for the 26 that they are asking however at the price point of these two lenses (though there's 200 dollars between them, the next level up is much much higher) I think it's clear. If you need the weather sealing, There is only one choice. If not, or if you don't mind a bag over your lens (or a lens waterproofing setup) then the 28mm will win hands down in image quality.

Ended up snagging the 28 after digging in on the image quality differences per your note. Thanks for the video.

I’m so sorry I missed your comment. It was held for review for some odd reason. So, The 26 is weather sealed. If that is what you need then you need that. As for how it compares to the 28. I haven’t tested the 26 yet but have read extensively on it. It has some pluses and minuses. It is weather sealed, and compact. Its image quality doesn’t seem to hold up to the 28 but its flare resistance is better. That leads me to believe it has better coatings. It focuses externally which isn’t the best but it’s the trade off for the compact nature. For landscape work, the 28 would be the best but in the PNW I am not sure if you want to have to put a bag over your camera (or a waterproofing device like a lens coat). Anyway, let me know how it works out for you. I will be interested to hear about your lens and what you think. Thanks for watching also!

That 50 is unusually perfect. Ill agree. The 40 is very very good though. Pixel peeping you can see the difference but I've become a huge fan. Thanks for the response and thanks for watching!

@@ThomasPetzwinkler The first thing I did when I got the Zf with the 40, I took it out for a few test landscape shots next to a reference. My reference that day was the Leica M10 with its 24MP and the Contax Zeiss 45mm f/2 Planar that I converted to M mount. The Zeiss Planar is a lens from the 1990s, with 1990s technology, 1990s glass and coatings. The 40 is a modern lens, less than three years old when it was introduced. I took the same shot, both on tripod, both with the same settings, the only difference being the framing given the 5mm focal length delta. Side by side on my screen, not even zoomed in to 100% I could see the difference, the Zeiss renders a much more detailed image, zooming in reveals a lot more detail on the Zeiss than the Nikkor. For landscape work, where fine detail resolution matters, the 40 doesn't cut it in my opinion. I think the 40 is better suited for social situations where its small size and looks (SE version) have benefits. I would use it for street photography too. Anywhere where maximum level of detail resolution is not the primary application. For the Zf, I wish Nikkor would produce a set of small lenses that are as sharp as the S lenses. I would accept those lenses to be f4 for wide angle and f2.8 for normal focal length. Also, the build quality of the 28/2.8 and 40/2 are an insult. I'd rather have a metal lens mount on all my lenses.

@@thedarkslide fair enough that it doesn’t hold up to that lens. I had the Contax G2 with the 28, 45, 75 mm lenses and they were very good lenses. That said, I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Especially at this price point, these lenses are not 1000 dollar primes. They are solid solid performers and have good character very good sharpness and excellent flare resistance. The lack of a metal lens mount is completely irrelevant in my opinion. One thing to remember is that the metal still bolts to a big mess of plastic in most new lenses anyway and the plastics being used now are so good it’s not that big of an issue that the mount is plastic. Sharpness isn’t everything. As landscapes photographers we are all different in what we are trying to capture of course. Exact facsimiles of the scene before us would be boring in my estimation. I would take character and wonderful color rendition any day over lines per mm. I’ve shot photos that still sell on 12 Mp cameras using 1980s lenses where the sharpness really just wasn’t there. As I said, sharpness is very overrated in my opinion. Thanks for your thoughts. I enjoy a good conversation on opinions or differences thereof. I hope the work I produce is helpful to you or at the very least entertaining. Thanks for dropping in!

@@ThomasPetzwinkler The 45/2 is not a $1000 lens anymore. You can find it as cheap as the 40/2 SE used or cheaper. And the 45/2 is a lens that is almost 30 years old. Any modern prime bar the most budget lenses from China should be on par when stopped down to f8. My cheaper Micro Four Third prime lenses have a metal mount, better build quality and are sharper. My expectations are higher for Nikon, they should do better. The 40/2 SE version is not exactly cheap for what it is - and it's not that there are other alternatives short of going for the larger S lenses - which I did. Maybe the manual Voigtländer lenses for Z mount, or just use the 45/2 on the Zf. For a landscape lens, sharpness is my (as in important to me) criteria. I cannot add details after the fact in post, I can always soften an image if that's what I am going for artistically. That said, the 40/2 is not an unusable lens - just not my first choice (or choice at all) for landscape.

@@thedarkslide You clearly miss my point. You are comparing a 300 dollar new budget lens with autofocus and very good image quality to a 20 year old lens with no autofocus and also very good image quality. Sharpness seems to be your only qualifier if a lens is good. The 40/2 is new 300 dollars has decent autofocus, does everything a new lens does, has the Nikon look and works perfectly. The 45/2 is 20 years old, used, doesn't autofocus and in general is a complete faff to use. I love adapting old glass but I don't pixel peep at 300 percent or more so I care not if the lens looks great at sizes no one would ever look at. I print usually at 17x24. The 40/2 is razor sharp for that. If I was printing 4x5 feet, I might notice a difference but with scaling tools of the modern day, I doubt I would see a difference. Like I said, I love adapting lenses but for most of my work, it doesn't make sense. Anyway, I'm glad you are enjoying the Contax lenses. They are great lenses for sure.

So... Being a film shooter myself I have wanted to do a head to head comparison like this for a long time. I will be doing it before too long. However. I have to say that I think the Z7 holds up well to medium format. Given sharp lenses and the finest of fine grain films, you may be able to out resolve it however you will still have the limitations of film. Very narrow dynamic range both highlight/shadow and color (if you are shooting color). That said, I love shooting film and I easily make huge prints of my 645 Mamiya negatives, my 6x6 Hassy negatives and my Fuji Texas Leica GW-690 negatives. At 6x9 you are starting to get in to out resolving 100 MP if done right. If you jump up to 4x5, its not even close. Fine grain film, good lenses and a 4x5 will out resolve any digital save for some of the new large format sensors but no humans have access to these things. LOL Here is where we run in to some problems of what is important to you. Even the best lenses from 50-60 years ago aren't going to match the sharpness of todays glass. It comes close but with computer design and manufacturing the new lenses are just that much better. Once again, however, you lose the character these older lenses had.

@ThomasPetzwinkler thank you so much. This is so helpful. Have a blessed week.

It does, and thats a fantastic park but I'm over and hour further down east from there. Thanks for watching and good eye by the way. I would have said the same.

@@ThomasPetzwinkler I realized that it wasn’t after I typed that. Moving back to Maine from Colorado in a few short months! Looking for photo nerds like myself to hang with. We should connect!

Absolutely! PM when you get here.

@@ThomasPetzwinkler will do!

Yes, but once you use the Z cameras, you won't want to go back (well that and get past seeing the "real" image in the viewfinder which you get over quick as the advantages are astounding). You just won't worry about your old gear. I loved my D800 and I loved my D850. I bought my D850 6 months before I bought the Z7. I stopped using the D850 within 6 months and its was sold within 8. That all doesn't matter though. The camera you have is amazing. I used it for 7 years without issue. It made me 100 times what I paid for it. Its a great body. Thanks for watching!

I agree, The differences between system F and Z do not seem so important to me when you see the final results and in fact there are many people who still prefer the colors and "imperfection" of DSLRs. You can see the comparission between D200 and Z7 in Nigel Danson channel and a lot of people saying that they like the image of the D200 more and find it more natural. On the other hand, the price of the S line of Z optics is a delirium, a theft. The construction quality is deplorable, any lens from the AI ​​line is light years away from those shapeless plastic things.

I would disagree with you entirely. Any camera can make great photography sure, but the Z system lenses are light years better than the F system lenses were and the cameras really are equal in functionality too. The dynamic range on a D200 APS-C sensor from almost 20 years ago in no way compares to modern cameras. The D850 is equivalent to the newer cameras but anything made before that can't hold a candle. I loved my D800 but the files out of the D850/Z7/Z9 just put anything in the past to shame. Does it matter? Not really, but when you argue that the old technology was as good or better than what we are dealing with today, you are just plain wrong. You might like the way it looks better but if you are shooting SOOC Jpegs you've missed the point of what the new cameras are doing anyway. As Ansel Adams said, the negative is the score and the print is the performance. If you Aren't editing your raw files, you might as well just shoot Fuji or something ancient that you like the way it looks. I can make any file I shoot look exactly like any digital camera ever created made it. I care nothing for straight out of camera finished images and anyone worth their salt as a photographer shouldn't either. Of course this is all just my opinion but the point of photography is creating something that is yours, not something that Fuji made. Just because you can snap a nice shot doesn't make it a masterpiece. That only happens once you have "printed" or in modern terms "edited" the image. Then and only then can you really call it a finished piece. Like I said, my opinion and YMMV.

@@ThomasPetzwinkler Dynamic range like MPXs have long been excuses to increase GAS. How much dynamic range and how many MPX is really needed? If you dedicate yourself to photographing birds in flight I understand, for the rest and speaking of photography and not fantastic photography you don't need it. I didn't say that the previous technology is better, but I could say that for most photography genres it is sufficient. Photography can be many things and so can its uses. Obviously we have different opinions and that's fine. Photography is always a tool and is used as a record of reality. If someone really wants to do something of their own then they have to dedicate themselves to painting, or digital art. One could even argue if photography it is really an art, not for me, it may have an artistic meaning but it is not necessarily art. It's another discussion. Depending on the type of photography you take, the editing will also depend. In fact, there are many who say that they do photography and the editing they do is so fanciful that they destroy photography, it is the problem of the power of editing tools. It's like the girl who doesn't have tits and decides to have surgery and doesn't get 90 or 95, she gets 120 and her next operation will be to straighten her back. And you can also choose photography masters who spent hours in the laboratory and others who only needed to take the shot, develop it and print it without major interventions. The example of the D200 that I brought is simply to show that a tool that is more than 10 years old and with a cropped sensor can still take a great photograph and that the advantages in technical performance do not always mean better overall image quality. Thank you for your time in responding.

Now you’re arguing something completely different from where we started. I never said you couldn’t make amazing images with old gear. I’m a film shooter half the time. I’ve been a professional photographer since the 90s. I came up in the industry with inferior tech. I still use it a lot. And as for your malformed opinion on even questioning whether photography can be art, you just removed yourself from having a legitimate discussion right there. I was an art professor at 2 major university over a 15 year period and I taught photography right along side my other profession, sculpture. Referring to women in the misogynistic way you did is the next step to removing you from having a legit conversation. Why on earth would you use that analogy? Anyway, please refrain from that behavior on my channel. I love a spirited conversation but respect comes above all else. Seriously. I really do appreciate you taking part in the discussion. Thanks for dropping in and I hope you’ll be regular around here.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy my work. Maybe you'll find something else you like around here. Thanks for watching!

I’m mystified by this sentiment. I’ve had a long string of digital Nikon cameras going back to the Nikon D100. I watch and enjoy content like this because my friends are not photographers. This is like hanging out with a photographer friend, for me. I also like to keep my feet on the ground in the situations where people ask about upgrading from a phone camera. A Z8 with the 50mm f/1.2 is what I’d want if my gear was lost, stolen, or destroyed. But a true beginner could do quite well with just a Z5 and the 40mm f/2. Keep the content coming. One thing I would suggest, break up discussions with some solo shots of the gear. Holding them up to the camera doesn’t display them all that well.

Thank you! You will love the lenses. They are just too good for their price category. I love them.