Nikon 28-400 Question and Answers

Nikon has just released an interesting 28-400, it looks like an interesting hiking lens and nice lightweight lens for small architectural detail shots, when I have a heavy bag of shift lenses.

BUT, these modern lenses need updated firmware in your camera to function properly. It seems a firmare update is coming from Nikon on the 26th of April for the Z range, which I hope includes my now ancient Z7.

Would it not be smarter to update the camera firmware first, (without perhaps spilling the new lens beans), and then sell you a lens that needs a certain firmare level to use with the lens.

I want this lens, but I will have to certain of a firmware update for my camera, before buying

Is it being shipped in Europe? In the USA it is still listed as coming soon.

My local dealer has one. I am in Italy

You should get rid of your FOMO.

The 28-400 is compatbile with all Z camera bodies, even though certain aspects still might be improved by future firmware updates.

If your Z7 doesn't get one it won't turn into a lemon.

For your information these Z lenses need firmware to work properly on Z cameras and they do not correct distortion or interact with IBIS on cameras without the relevant firmware.

What I buy is my choice, and I do not have to justify anything I buy to anybody. Whether I have FOMO is my problem, and I am sick of somebody who does not know me or my photography, questioning or denigrating my choices, as it always seems to happen on forums. OK.

Update

It seems no special firmare update is necessary. So I bought this lens.

I have just shot a few frames off the balcony, and it seems a pretty impressive lens. My Z7 is doing the distortion adjustments, and the IBIS/VR lets me shoot sharp pictures a 1/30 at 400mm.

Coupled with the 14-30, this looks like a great setup for those times I want to go light.

From the first few frames, it looks like a lens that has exceeded my expectations, just as the 24-200 did

Its raining continuously here, so my first test shots were taken from my balcony. I have not cropped or done any PP, apart from a bit of exposure tweaking.

Im pretty amazed at this 400mm shot at 1/30 The minimum F8 aperture becomes a bit less limiting

Wide at 28mm

Wide

A badly framed brick wall. 28mm. Looks like the in camera corrections are working well.

I,m a bit schizophrenic with my photography. I love the sharpness, micro contrast and shear pixel peeping image quality of my prime shift lenses, and I wish I could justify the Fuji MF camera with their shift lenses. But for travel hiking and such, the 24-200 and now this 28-400 are my go to tools as the quality really is more than good enough and I have eliminated all the lens changing in the field.

This is a pretty good practical review of the lens. The image quality is not too far off the well rated 24-120.

No crop, no PP, yet you post 2.8MP images from the 45.44MP sooc Z7?

Reduced by ~1:16 even bad lens will look good.
Thus many reviews prefer to show 100% crops instead of thumbnails.

They are Raw images converted in Capture 1 to JPEG for online use. Anybody who is interested can have a full size RAW or JPEG by Dropbox, if they PM me.

Follow the link in my post and you can see some professionally done small crop samples.

Otherwise, just take my word for the fact this lens is pretty amazing for a superzoom.

The only other zoom with this range is the Olympus 14-200 which is a pretty poor lens by all accounts.

FYI: the Olympus is 12-200, a significantly longer zoom range (1:16.6) than the Nikon 28-400 (1:14.2).

A big advantage of the "superzoom" for me is that I can avoid lots of lens changes, when I am hiking. In fact I bought the 24-200 for hiking, thinking it would be an OK lens to record my walks in the mountains. I was not too worried about image quality. Previously, I used two EM5 bodies with the Panasonic 12-35 and 35-100. Both excellent lenses, but I found that the body with the 35-100 just remained in my rucksack, as it is not a quick process to stop and dig out the other lens. The 24-200 fixed the problem. My other choice at the time was the Olympus 12-100, but other factors convinced me to slim down to just Nikon.

Mountains are generally windy and sensor dust is always a danger. The 400mm end will be good as I find a long telephoto, in the mountains is often more useful than wide angle.

A good case for these lenses can be made for those trips out with the family, where lens changing elicits groans. I just usually carry one body with the 24-200 slung over my shoulder for these occasions.

Another reason I got this lens, was that I wanted a lightweight long lens for architectural detail shots. 200 is a bit short. The VR/IBIS seems to very good, which means it will work fine on my Monopod system, that I use when using a tripod is not possible.

I skived off this afternoon, to see what this lens can do. Nothing artistic. I had an hour to shoot some stuff in town with the 28-400. I like to test out new gear in real life situations. I have done some minor tweaking and some keystone correction. I did not find the aperture limiting in the old church. I just used a higher ISO. I did not find F8 limiting for this sort of photography.

On my big screen they look nice and sharp with lots of detail. I think optically it is better than the 24-200

Here are some examples.

I took a walk along the River Po, afre a medical appointment nearby. Here are some more pictures with the 28-400. I was was with my wife, so I had to be quick! Also I did not have very good light for these shots.

I now have the problem with my 24-200. Do I keep it, or has the 28-400, made it redundant for me.

Well, this one's a keeper, for sure! Great shots.

David