{"id":21904,"date":"2024-12-11T04:55:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T02:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/?p=21904"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:33:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:33:39","slug":"my-take-on-the-nikon-z-26mm-f-2-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/?p=21904","title":{"rendered":"My Take On: the Nikon Z 26mm F 2.8"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>NIKON Z 8 (26mm, f\/8, 1\/500 sec, ISO200)
<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are my thoughts on Nikons smallest full frame lens for Nikon Z.<\/p>\n

What it is:<\/strong> This is a super compact 26mm pancake lens with an average aperture. The main attraction is its size and weight but there is more to it. 26mm is a very useful focal length and because of the size it is the perfect walk around lens. It’s wide enough for my style of travel and street photography but of course it’s a little too narrow for architecture and interior. Combined with the 40\/2 it makes for a super small and light but very capable minimalist setup.<\/p>\n

Mechanical quality and design:<\/strong> The mechanical quality is nice and good enough. I like that the mount is made of metal. The plastic mount is the biggest issue I have with the 40\/2. The 26\/2.8 seems to be better made but its design is a little strange. When the lens focuses the whole lens (a small cylinder) comes out. Just like a turtle that sticks out its head. It looks strange and if you should decide to use the lens without the lens hood this could even cause a problem with the lens cap.<\/p>\n

The lens cap design is great. It’s a push on design just like what you find on a Fuji X100. It’s an elegant and quick solution, the only problem here is the little turtle neck can’t extend when you turn on the camera with the lens cap still in place. That can’t be good for the little motor. Luckily the solution is simple: just use the supplied lens hood which also helps the overall look of the lens as it hides the little “turtle action”.<\/p>\n

AF performance:<\/strong> It’s not as fast as the AF on the 20\/1.8 but at least on my Z8 it is still fast enough. To put it in perspective: This lens focuses faster on my Z8 than everything I used when I was shooting Fuji. Just in the Nikon Z world it is slower than its bigger brothers. It doesn’t hunt though. I mention this because the 40\/2 hunts sometimes in very poor light. The AF is not totally silent which I guess could be a problem for video. For photography it’s not an issue. Again: compared to some of my favourite lenses from Fuji, the 14\/2.8 and the 35\/1.4, the focus mechanism is silent.<\/p>\n

Optical quality:<\/strong> I initially hesitated to spend so much money for so little lens but I was wrong. \u00a0This is a really excellent lens. It has become my most used lens on my recent vacation in Japan. Not because it is small and light but because it is good. It’s sharp wide open and it’s sharp at close distances. I think this is the reason for the strange design where the whole lens unit moves when focusing. I just like how this lens renders and I think it has to do with the simple design. I learned that simpler designs (less lenses, lens groups, \u00a0less ED or no ED glass) often produce nicer images.<\/p>\n

wish list:<\/strong> nothing really. Except Nikon please just make more pancakes like that. How about a 35\/2.8 next?<\/p>\n

Summary: Don’t get fooled by its size this lens is excellent. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NIKON Z 8 (26mm, f\/8, 1\/500 sec, ISO200) Here are my thoughts on Nikons smallest full frame lens for Nikon Z.… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[260,17],"tags":[358,346],"class_list":["post-21904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lens-review","category-review","tag-nikon-z-26-2-8","tag-nikon-z8"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2IL4R-5Hi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21904"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22336,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21904\/revisions\/22336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlebigtravelingcamera.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}