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How well does the Nikon Z work with adapted lenses?

When we polled our readers to find the things it was most important for Nikon to get right in its full frame mirrorless camera, full compatibility and performance with its F-mount lenses came out top.

This is no surprise: Nikon has sold over 100 million F-mount lenses, which has resulted in a large, loyal and, to a degree, locked-in user base. For Nikon to convert any significant proportion of those users into ‘Z’ mount shooters, they need not just to be able to mount their existing lenses, but to have them work well with the new system.

Based on our experiences so far, we don’t think they’ll be disappointed – and this is the first time that photographers using F-mount lenses will have autofocus coverage across almost the entire frame.

Nikon FTZ adapter

Backwards compatibility is provided through the optional Nikon FTZ adapter, which will sell for around $ 250 (though initially there’ll be a $ 100 discount if bought along with a Z series camera).

This F-mount to Z-mount adapter has full electronic connections between the camera and the lens. It also features a mechanical actuator to operate the aperture on the lens you mount to it. This means it will work with more than just the latest ‘E’ type lenses that have their own aperture actuators built-in.

This is something of a pleasant surprise; Nikon could certainly have made their lives easier by just supporting those newer electronic-aperture lenses, but we’re glad they’ve included even more backwards compatibility.

Full compatibility with AF-S lenses

That increased backward compatibility thanks to the aperture actuator means that AF-S and AF-I lenses are fully compatible with the Z system. Essentially, anything with its own focus motor will work and will be compatible with all the camera’s functions. There’s a greater risk of focus noise in video mode as Nikon lenses tend to have noisy focus motors, but that’s essentially the only limitation to using pretty much every lens launched in the past 18 years.

Partial compatibility with older lenses

The constant evolution of the F-mount means there have been many versions over the years. As you might expect, the degree of compatibility offered by the FTZ adapter drops as the lenses get older.

AF-D and AF Nikkor lenses without built-in AF motors will mount on the adapter and work with all metering modes, but will not autofocus. There’s no AI lever on the adapter, though, so anything from before the mid 1980s will mount but will have increasing restrictions over which metering modes are available.

As in previous high-end Nikons, it’s possible to record a list of non-CPU (AI and Pre-AI lenses) through the menus, so that the camera understands the focal length and maximum aperture of the attached lens. You can assign this function to one of the camera’s buttons if you’re regularly switching between lenses.

For more information on these oldest of Nikon lenses, check out our primer.

VR behavior

When working with adapted lenses, the camera’s in-body image stabilization system drops to offering correction in three axes: pitch, yaw and roll. This is optimized based either on the focal length data provided by the lens or from the focal length that’s been manually specified, if you’re working with non-CPU lenses.

Any lens with its own ‘Vibration Reduction’ mechanism built in should be more effectively stabilized. With VR lenses, responsibility for correcting pitch and yaw is passed to the lens, since in-lens stabilization can provide a greater degree of travel than the in-body system could provide on its own. The camera continues to provide roll correction that the lens can’t itself provide.

Performance with the AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G ED

During our time with a pre-production Nikon Z 7, we mounted the AF-S Nikkor 35mm F1.8 to the adapter and were impressed by the performance. In fact, we found it sometimes focused more reliably on moving subjects than the native (though pre-production) Z-mount 35mm F1.8.

All functions worked as expected and it focused quickly. Continuous autofocus performance was impressive, and is what we used to get this tack sharp shot of a toddler with this combo. During bursts though, our impression – albeit with beta firmware – was that the camera would sometimes back-focus trying to keep up with fast approaching subjects. This was not unique to this lens, and we hope final firmware provides improved performance.

The constant motor chatter would rule it out for video use though, unless you use an external mic away from the lens. And, of course, when used on the Z 7, the F-mount 35mm F1.8’s results are stabilized.

Performance: AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm F2.8E

The 70-200mm F2.8 is an essential part of many photographers’ kits and again we were impressed with how it performed on a pre-production Z 7. Focus was swift and generally snappy, just as we’d expect with the lens mounted on a Nikon DSLR. Subject tracking appeared to successfully stick to our subject as well, though becomes harder to engage as using the touchscreen or pressing the ‘OK’ button becomes more cumbersome with large lenses.

The camera was able to drive the lens to refocus on a moving subject quickly and decisively, giving us a very good hit rate of perfectly in-focus images in Single Drive. The only moments of doubt came when shooting high-speed bursts of images. As with most other lenses we tried on the pre-production Z 7, we experienced some back-focused shots as the focus system played catch-up on rapidly approaching subjects (you can see the results in our preliminary look at the camera’s AF performance).

We didn’t shoot with it enough to get a sense for whether the addition of roll-axis correction was significantly adding to our keeper rate, but the fact it comes in addition to the lens’s own VR can only be a bonus.

With manual focus lenses

In our limited time with the pre-production Z 7 and FTZ adapter, we unfortunately didn’t have a chance to give it a try with an older AI or AI-S manual focus lens. However, the Z 7 comes with effective focus peaking, and you can also assign a focus magnifier to a custom button, making it easy to quickly check critical focus.

We’re most curious as to whether the adapter has a provision for automatically magnifying the view if it can detect focus ring movement, and is something we’ll investigate when we have a production model in our offices.

Lack of third-party openness

However, while the FTZ adapter works very well, in the short term it’ll be the only adapter available. Despite the dimensions of the Z-mount being especially well-suited to adapting almost any lens you can think of, Nikon has – perhaps not surprisingly – decided not to share the mount’s electronic specifications for aspects such as focus and exposure with other manufacturers.

This has always been true of the older F-mount, where Tamron, Sigma and other companies have reverse-engineered it for years to offer their own lens alternatives. We would have liked to see Nikon be more open in this regard, particularly for those coming from different systems or wanting more video-centric lenses to take advantage of the new video-centric features on the Z 7 and Z 6.

The relatively open nature of the Micro Four Thirds mount and, to an increasing degree, Sony’s E-mount has really helped to flesh out those systems’ lens ecosystems. While doing this for the Z-mount may have meant fewer users buying Z-mount Nikkor S lenses in the near term, it would have given early adopters of the Z 6 and Z 7 the possibility of more lens options outside of those Nikon’s indicated on their roadmap.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)