So I’ve had the chance to play around with my Nikon Z50 II for a bit and get out to take shots in a couple of different places. And while the kit lenses work well enough in most situations that I’ve come across there are a couple of things that I’m thinking that I might want to pick up something a bit more specialized for some of the shooting that I’ve been doing.
The one thing that I don’t really care for on the 50-250 that I have is how far the lens extends out from the front of the camera when you have it locked into a shooting position. When you have it locked for storage it’s a little over 5 inches long, but when you open it up for shooting it’s immediately extended out to between 7 and almost 9 inches in length depending on what you have it zoomed out for.
While I would prefer a lens with internal zoom the only one that I can find is the NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S II, a lens that’s going to cost me over 4k CAD by the time that taxes and such are applied to it.
And while I wouldn’t mind picking one up I have other things that I think that that 4k should be spent on.
So, what other options are out there?
Looking at the shots taken at the IBJJF Worlds most of those where shot at 50mm, there were a few where I couldn’t get close enough and had to push the lens out to the 85 – 100mm range, and a couple where I shot candid shots across the mat and those where all around the 250mm level. So one option might be to pick up a couple of prime lenses that do what I want and just rock a second body. A second Z50 II and a 50 to 85mm lens would probably be less than the cost of the one superzoom. It would also give the benefit of having some redundancy in case something happens to one of the bodies.
So time to snoop around and see what’s avlaible in prime lenses around the 50mm + range.