Rodney Campbell's Blog

Today I wish to look at the new Nikon Z mount 14-30mm f/4 S lens with the NiSi V6 100mm Filter Holder. Primarily to assess whether vignetting is going to be an issue with filters with this lens

Z 14-30 @14mm + Nisi V6 Holder (incl CPL) vs F 16-35 @ 16mm + Lee Holder + CPL

The 14-30mm Z lens is seriously ultra wide (down to 14mm). It also has a flat rather than the usual bulbous front element (as found on every other 14mm FX lens). Finally it has a standard 82mm front filter thread

For a landscape photographer this is EPIC!

This means I can finally use “normal” filters. This includes my standard 100mm slot filter system – all with a lens this wide

However my existing Lee filter holder with the large 105mm polariser on front noticeably vignettes on the 16-35 from about 19mm. This meant typically for the vast majority of my landscape imagery I was limited to using focal lengths from around 18, 19 or 20mm

I’d heard that the NiSi filter holder (with the polariser) will definitely work down to 16mm. Possibly even 14mm without vignetting

So I’d ordered the new V6 NiSi holder and today I’ll be testing whether my hypothesis is valid

I shot all of the following with the Z7 on a tripod facing a white(ish) wall, manual focus, ISO 64, aperture priority

All these images are essentially straight out of camera RAW’s, no (lens) profile corrections, etc. The only thing I’ve done is synchronise a white balance between all the shots and taken the saturation down to remove any distracting colour

Lighting was natural light coming in from outdoors. Therefore some slight change in light direction and intensity during the sequence might be expected

First up a baseline shot with just the camera and lens at 14mm

Z7 + 14-30 @ 14mm

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

Next I added the NiSi V6 adapter ring (including the NiSi CPL). Other than the expected exposure change I see no other practical difference (or additional vignetting)

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi Adapter (incl CPL)

To that I’ve added the 3 slot NiSi filter holder onto the front. Again no practical change (or additional vignetting)

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi Holder (incl CPL) (3 Slot)

Next I added 2 stop ND graduated filter (these are 150x100mm slot in filters). I added this filter to the outermost (furthest) of the three slots. Other than the expected exposure change I see no other practical difference (or additional vignetting)

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi + 0.6GND

The only change for this shot is I’ve slid down the grad so that it completely covers the imaging area and becomes a 2 stop ND (rather than grad)

Note: I checked and there’s still easily enough filter coverage for a grad to be used this way even at 14mm. This is great because I don’t need to buy any solid ND’s. I can just continue to use my various grads as I’ve done previously

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi + 0.6ND

For comparison I’ve mounted my existing 16-35mm f/4 F mount lens on the Z7 using the handy FTZ adapter

I’ll be using this to test the Lee filter holder to show what I mean by noticable vignetting with that holder a even much less wide focal lengths. I can’t mount the Lee holder on the 14-30 Z lens because I only have a 77mm Lee adapter ring

Firstly the baseline shot again with just the camera and lens at 16mm

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 Only @ 16mm

Adding the Lee UWA adapter ring and the Lee 2 slot holder again shows no additional vignetting

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 + Lee Holder (2 Slot)

Here I attach the Heliopan 105mm slim Circular Polariser (CPL) to the ring at the front of my Lee holder. As you can see this is what I mean by extremely noticable vignetting and this doesn’t go away till I get to about 19 or 20mm

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 + Lee + 105 CPL @ 16mm

Even at 20mm you can just barely see the impact on the far right top and bottom corners

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 + Lee + 105 CPL @ 20mm

Note this isn’t a review of the NiSi filter holder and CPL. I’ll do that separately once I’ve had a chance to properly use it out in the field