Nikon Z 24-120mm F4 S

We’ll be reviewing the Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S and taking a closer look at its focal length, aperture, focus mechanism, and lots more.

Released in late 2021, it wasn’t marketed as just another standard kit zoom; but as a versatile, premium S-Line workhorse.

Looking at its streamlined barrel, dual customizable rings, and weighing in at an impressively light 630 grams, it's clear that Nikon prioritized a perfect balance between an extended 5x focal range and professional-grade optical performance over excessive bulk.

But in a market with options like the compact Z 24-70mm f/4 S or the faster Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S, does this extra telephoto reach justify its place as the ultimate all-in-one standard zoom for your camera bag?

Let’s find out.

The lens features an incredibly versatile 5x zoom range spanning from a wide-angle 24mm to a telephoto 120mm.

This is universally regarded as one of the most practical everyday focal ranges, transitioning seamlessly from expansive landscape horizons and tight urban street views to flattering portrait frames without ever needing a lens swap.

When mounted on full-frame (FX-format) cameras, the lens delivers its native 24-120mm coverage. On APS-C (DX-format) crop-sensor camera bodies, the lens undergoes a 1.5x crop factor, shifting its effective focal range to an equivalent of 36-180mm with a more narrow angle of view that pushes its telephoto capabilities even further.

At the core of this lens is its constant maximum aperture of f/4 across the entire zoom range.

While it doesn’t match the ultra-shallow depth of field of premium primes, this constant f/4 layout ensures predictable, consistent exposure settings and creative control over background blur without your shutter speed or ISO fluctuating while zooming.

The lens offers an adjustable aperture range from wide-open f/4 down to a minimum of f/22.

The range is electronically governed, allowing for smooth transition adjustments directly through the camera body or through the lens’s dedicated programmable control ring.

Containing 9 rounded aperture blades, the lens maintains a remarkably circular opening even when stopped down.

This design guarantees smoothly rendered, circular out-of-focus highlights and eliminates harsh polygonal edges in the background geometry.

Nikon implemented a highly advanced multi-focus system in this lens.

Instead of shifting a single large, heavy lens group, the multi-focus mechanism divides the work by moving two separate focus groups independently and simultaneously along the optical axis.

This lens utilizes two separate, synchronized high-torque stepping (STM) motors operating in a synchronized configuration.

The dual stepping motors operate with near-total silence. The mechanical whirring is completely minimized to being virtually inaudible to the human ear and microphones, making the lens a pristine choice for sound-sensitive environments and spoken audio capture.

Autofocus operation is exceptionally smooth, continuous, and precise. Even when tracking fast-moving subjects or swinging instantly from a near foreground object to a distant background target, the autofocus tracks confidently and locks on almost instantaneously.

Featuring a focus-by-wire system, manual focusing is handled electronically through a dedicated front ring.

The camera settings allow you to customize the behavior of the ring, giving you the option to toggle between linear and non-linear focus throws depending on whether you require immediate speed or deliberate, cinematic focus pulls.

The minimum focusing distance is a constant 0.35 meters (1.15 feet) from the camera’s sensor plane across the entirety of the zoom range. At 120mm, it achieves a class-leading maximum magnification ratio of 0.39x, allowing for close proximity to subjects for intimate, near-macro details.

The dedicated manual focus ring is nicely damped. Its rotation is fluid, allowing for an authentic, tactile mechanical feel without any noticeable latency or electronic lag.

As a flagship zoom entry in Nikon's premium S-Line tier, the optical formulation represents the pinnacle of modern Z-mount zoom engineering.

The complex optical architecture contains 16 elements arranged in 13 groups. This dense arrangement includes specialized glass specifically engineered to correct aberrations natively before any digital corrections are applied.

The layout features 3 aspherical elements and 1 unique element that combines both ED and aspherical properties to effectively neutralize spherical aberration, coma, and field curvature.

Additionally, 3 Extra-low Dispersion (ED) glass elements are integrated into the recipe to heavily suppress color fringing and maximize clarity.

Nikon applied its most sophisticated anti-reflective treatments to this lens: Nano Crystal Coat (N) and ARNEO Coat (A).

Together, these layers suppress incidental light hitting the glass from diagonal and vertical directions, drastically cutting down internal reflections, ghosting, and flare. It also features a Super Integrated Coating (SIC) for rich color balance.

Thanks to the tandem operation of the specialized ED glass and the strict S-line optical standard, chromatic aberrations are heavily suppressed.

Fringing around high-contrast transitions is kept remarkably minimal across the entire zoom range.

Geometric distortion is incredibly low as well. While minor barrel distortion at 24mm and slight pincushion distortion at the telephoto end are present natively, they are automatically corrected flawlessly via embedded in-camera profiles, ensuring straight architectural lines remain perfectly flat.

Constructed to meet rigorous professional standards, the outer shell combines premium engineered polycarbonate materials with a rugged internal framework. This provides an optimal blend of day-long durability and lightweight structural stability.

The lens barrel sports a sleek, matte-satin black finish. It features an assignable Lens Function (L.Fn) button, an auto/manual (AF/MF) toggle switch, a large mechanical zoom ring, and a secondary customizable control ring at the rear that turns clicklessly for silent on-the-fly exposure adjustments.

The lens is fitted with a heavy-duty, solid metal Nikon Z bayonet mount. It includes 11 gold-plated electronic contacts for ultra-high-speed communication with the camera body and 4 locking tabs for secure, wiggle-free mounting.

Positioned towards the front half of the lens barrel, the primary manual focus ring is broad and easily distinguishable by touch alone from the thinner control ring, allowing the photographer to maintain eye contact with the viewfinder.

The front of the lens features a standard 77mm filter thread. The thread does not rotate during zooming or focusing, allowing for the seamless use of circular polarizers and variable neutral density (ND) filters.

True to its professional pedigree, the lens features extensive weather-sealing.

Roughly 11 rubber gaskets are deployed around all moving sections of the barrel, joints, buttons, switches, and the rear mount to actively prevent dust and moisture penetration. The front element is also finished with a protective fluorine coating to repel water, oils, and fingerprints.

Weighing in at a modest 630 grams (1.4 lbs), it is an incredibly lightweight lens for a premium 5x zoom. Its minimal mass makes it a joy to carry for extended periods, balancing perfectly on mid-sized mirrorless bodies like the Nikon Z6 III and Z7 II, as well as larger professional bodies like the Nikon Z8 and Z9.

The lens does not contain built-in optical stabilization (Vibration Reduction). Instead, it relies on the robust 5-axis In-Body Image Stabilization (IBIS) built natively into Nikon’s full-frame mirrorless camera bodies to counteract camera shake.

Here’s a clip captured without a gimbal or tripod to show how stable the lens remains relying purely on a camera body's IBIS, even when dragging the shutter or tracking video handheld at the 120mm telephoto end.

For portrait photography, while an f/4 aperture won't completely dissolve the background like an f/1.2 prime, jumping to the 85mm to 120mm range allows you to capitalize on telephoto compression. It delivers beautifully smooth background blur with exceptionally sharp tracking on the subject's eyes, rendering natural skin tones and a clean separation from backgrounds.

For street photography, with its lightweight footprint and expansive zoom range, this lens offers a cinematic perspective for urban environments. It yields exceptional micro-contrast, letting you shoot wide at 24mm to capture expansive architectural street geometry and instantly twist to 120mm to isolate candid human subjects from a distance.

For low light photography, with a constant f/4 aperture, this lens is somewhat more limited in extreme low light compared to faster primes. However, when paired with the exceptional high-ISO performance of modern Nikon Z sensors and IBIS, it remains a highly reliable tool for twilight landscapes, event coverage, or well-lit night streets.

For product photography, for commercial and product applications, the lens resolves fine textures and details with absolute crispness. The 120mm telephoto end lets you step back from the product for a superior, distortion-free perspective rendering of three-dimensional objects, delivering outstanding corner-to-corner clarity and zero color bleeding on reflective surfaces.

For landscape photography, This lens truly shines for outdoor and landscape use. Review benchmarks demonstrate that when stopped down, it is capable of resolving extreme fine detail that fully saturates high-resolution sensors like the Z8. It delivers ultra-sharp landscape frames with minimal vignetting and superb contrast across the entire frame.

For macro photography, though not a dedicated macro lens, its close-focus capability of 0.35m lets you achieve a stellar 0.39x maximum magnification ratio at the 120mm end. Getting that close to close-up details yields incredibly sharp images defined by a narrow slice of focus surrounded by thick, clean background bokeh.

The optical character evolves beautifully across its f-stop range.

At f/4, offers excellent center sharpness and remarkably high contrast wide open across the entire zoom range. The corners are highly detailed at the wide end, with a minor hint of softness at 120mm that cleans up rapidly. Peripheral vignetting is present but modest.

At f/5.6, center sharpness turns exceptionally biting, and the mid-frame and corners clean up completely. Peripheral vignetting drops down significantly, and contrast levels reach outstanding baseline metrics.

At f/8, the lens reaches its absolute peak resolution and corner-to-corner uniformity across the entire frame. Edge-to-edge sharpness is jaw-dropping, making it ideal for high-detail studio and landscape photography where it competes directly with reference-grade prime lenses.

At f/11 to f/16, image quality and resolution remain highly consistent and perfectly uniform, though subtle softening gradually creeps into the frame at f/16 and f/22 due to the natural physical limits of optical diffraction.

The engineering behind this lens heavily favors professional video production and hybrid workflows.

The inclusion of the multi-focus system results in minimal to virtually non-existent focus breathing, meaning the composition does not shift noticeably when racking focus between foreground and background subjects.

Focus tracking via the dual STM motors is entirely silent, keeping unwanted handling noises out of the audio track.

Furthermore, the clickless control ring allows videographers to make completely silent and seamless aperture adjustments or exposure compensations on the fly, while the smooth mechanical zoom ring allows for fluid focal changes.

In conclusion, Nikon set out to prove just how much utility, reach, and optical brilliance they could pack into an everyday standard zoom, and the 24-120mm f/4 S is a triumphant proof of concept.

From a pure performance standpoint, its corner-to-corner resolution metrics, rigorous control over chromatic aberrations, and rapid dual-motor AF system easily justify its premium S-Line designation.

While its f/4 maximum aperture trades away the ultra-shallow depth of field of primes, it stands as a highly justifiable investment for working professionals and passionate enthusiasts who require a flexible, high-fidelity all-in-one lens for travel, landscape, and event documentary work.

It earns my highest recommendation as the ultimate walk-around workhorse.

The bottom line?

Buy it if: You demand an incredibly versatile 5x zoom range with professional S-Line sharpness, excellent close-focus macro capabilities, and silent autofocus for high-end hybrid stills and video.

Skip it if: You absolutely require ultra-fast apertures like f/1.2 or f/2.8 for extreme low-light environments, or prefer the extended reach and built-in stabilization of a lens like the Z 24-200mm VR.