Nikon 24-120 F4 Un-Boxing

Nikon announced a brand new 24-120 F4 a little while ago and I finally get my hands on one to unbox and sniff test it. In the ever changing landscape of digital photography everyone try’s to make longer and longer zooms. The issue is the longer the zoom the higher the F stop tends to be. In this case Nikon created a lens with a nice zoom range and a fixed F4 aperture.

The lens feels FAT in the hands meaning it has a pretty nice girth to it. When you you turn the zoom ring the lens pretty much doubles its length to reach 120mm. Having the fixed f stop means that at 24 it is an f4 and at 120 it is an f4. The build quality seems to be very good on most aspects of the lens except the focus rings. The ring feels to narrow and flimsy. It just does not feel as nice in the hands as one of the higher end pro 2.8 lenses.

The Nikon 24-120 F4 sells for $1299.99 which is pretty expensive for a non 2.8 lens. We all know that I love my 2.8 lenses and here is why. The faster glass (2.8 or faster) seems to give you more punchy images, better clarity, less distortion, better build quality and better bokah. In this case the Nikon 24-70 is a few dollars more and I would recommend that if you are a pro or aspire to be that you spend the few extra dollars and pick that one up.

Who is this lens for. This lens is for the amateur market, someone who wants to cary around a very nice zoom range in just one lens without sacrificing to much light. It will work well with Video and Stills but for the money I still say go for the first lens in the hebrew trinity, the 24-70 2.8.