The Best Lens for Landscape Photography | NIKKOR Z 14-30mm F4 S Lens Review
Introduction
The NIKKOR Z 14-30mm F4 S is to me the best NIKON Z lens for landscape photography. The focal length it provides is paramount to my work as a landscape photographer and the existence of this lens was a major consideration when I decided to switch from DSLRs to the mirrorless Z lineup. This mirrorless camera lens review, discuss optical performance, how the lens handles vignetting and chromatic aberrations as well as ergonomics and size and weight. There’s also a sample image gallery at the bottom!
Nikon Z 8, Z 14-30mm F4 S, iso64, 21.5mm, f/9, 1/10s
Focal Length
To me, the 14-30mm focal range is the quintessential landscape photographer’s range. Even though telephoto lenses are capable of creating some stunning landscape photography, They’re often a lot more expensive, heavier, harder to operate, and depending on the country you’re in, you might not have opportunity to use a zoom that long.
Telephoto Landscape photo at 300mm. Taken with the NIKKOR Z 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 S lens.
Wide angle landscapes however, can fit in the urban cityscape photographer’s backpack as well as in the wide countryside. With ultra wide-angle lenses like the NIKKOR 14-30mm F4 S, you can take landscape photos with a large foreground element in front, with a big sprawling beautiful background behind.
Nikon Z 8, Z 14-30mm F4 S, iso250, 18mm, f/10, 1/20s. Using an ultra wide angle lens allows you to make the foreground seem bigger, and you can use this to frame your subject.
If you so desire, you can also zoom in to the 30mm range, which I find very useful in pushing in distant landscapes or architecture just a bit closer.
Nikon Z 8, Z 14-30mm F4 S, iso250, 29mm, f/10, 1/3s, zooming close to the 30mm length enables me to compress the scene a tiny bit more.
You don’t need F2.8 for most landscapes and architectural photography, and yet NIKKOR 14-30mm F4 S lens is also an excellent choice for events and wedding photography as it has a constant F4 aperture and works well with Z camera’s built-in Vibration Reduction.
Nikon Z 7ii, Z 14-30mm F4 S, iso1600, 18mm, f/4, 1/100s. Having an ultra wide angle lens enables me for some creative wedding photography, and works well for large group photos in tight corners too.
Optical Performance
So the NIKKOR Z 14-30mm F4 S lens is really the lens that got me super impressed with the NIKON Z lineup. It’s really sharp, edge-to-edge even at 14mm. Certainly no complains in the sharpness arena.
Nikon Z 7, Z 14-30mm F4 S, iso64, 14mm, f/14, 1/13s, edge to edge sharpness perfection.
Size and Weight
One of my favourite features of this lens is its size and weight. It’s really light, approximately 485g and extremely compact at 89mm x 85mm, thanks to its collapsible design.
The NIKKOR Z 14-30mm F4 S lens standing next to its cousin, the venerable Z 24-120mm F4 S lens.
BTW, I also have a review on these zoom lenses, the NIKKOR Z 24-120mm F4 S, the NIKKOR Z 24-200mm F4-6.3 and the NIKKOR Z 28-400mm F4-6.3 lens if you’re interested.
One thing I’m not fond of is the extruding zoom design. Even though the lens is weather-sealed, protruding lens elements do provide a means for dust and water or grease to migrate into the internal workings of the lens.
Barrel Distortion and Vignetting
The downfall of most wide angle lenses like this is usually barrel distortion. You can see that there is some significant curvature at the edges at 14mm, but Adobe Lightroom clears it up automatically with its built-in lens profiles. The same case for vignetting, which I find bearable.
Minimal barrel distortion is seen after being cleared up in Adobe Lightroom, as seen in these steps.
Some amount of vignetting is visible at 14mm even after importing into Lightroom, but pretty acceptable in my book.
Focusing
The len’s focusing speed is lighting fast, but that’s hardly an important feature for its intended purpose. What’s more important to me is its minimum focusing distance, which determines how well it can produce shots like the one below, where you have a close foreground element.
Nikon Z 8, Z 14-30mm F4 S, iso64, 14mm, f/14, 240s, the lens focuses as close as 11 inches throughout its focal range.
Filter Compatibility
Here’s another reason why this lens is so great. It has an 82mm filter thread, but no bulbous glass element in front. This means that you can easily fit all kinds of filters on it without investing in huge 112mm glass filters. Smaller filters are cheaper, and easier to transport. Coupled with a camera with excellent dynamic range like the NIKON Z 8 or Z7ii, having a pack of GNDS with this lens often means you can take photos in challenging high dynamic range lighting situations like sunsets with just a single exposure.
Left: Image taken straight out of camera, intentionally underexposed to preserve highlights.
Right: Edited image. Using only graduated neutral density filters, you can get this image in one exposure, no need for luminosity blending or HDR editing.
Flares and Chromatic Aberrations
This is one area where the lens needs massive improvement. When shooting directly at the sun, you get ugly sunstars and terrible flaring, even without any filters on the lens.
Terrible flares and artefacts introduced when shooting directly into bright sunlight.
The lens performs better in the area of managing chromatic aberrations. While you can definitely see some CA on the back of your camera screen in high contrast scenes, there’s almost none to be seen after import into Lightroom.
Chromatic Aberrations are visible when shooting the picture but all disappears automatically after importing into Adobe Lightroom.
Conclusion
The NIKKOR Z 14-30mm F4 S lens is an irreplaceable piece of equipment in my camera bag, and I’m a huge fan of its optical performance as well as its size and weight. It only has 2 other competitors in the NIKON Z lineup, the Z 14-24mm F2.8 S, which I find too expensive and doesn’t fit most filters, and the Tamron rebadged Z 17-28mm F2.8 lens, which is not wide enough for my purposes. (3mm on the wide end is a lot of difference!)
While I do wish NIKON updates this lens with a better version (F2.8?) that controls flares better, I’m majorly pleased with this lens and look forward to using it in the years ahead.
