If there’s a record for the lens I’ve owned for the shortest time, it’s the Nikon Z 24-70 f/2.8 S, clocking in at just over two weeks. This is one lens I never thought I’d even buy in the first place because it’s Nikon’s high-end, expensive zoom, retailing for $2,400. I only bought it because it was on sale used from Lensrentals for 48% off its retail price! Even though I already have a 24 – 120mm f/4 Z lens that’s very good, I was interested in the extra stop of light and better bokeh of the 24 – 70. I’d been doing some research on the Tamron 28 – 75 G2 that was recently released for the Z mount and its optical quality and rendering interested me. It lists for $1,000 and Nikon’s 24 – 70 wasn’t much more for an even better lens.
So how did I find this great deal? Luck. Lensrentals always sells its rentals after they’ve been used for a couple years but happened to be running a promotion for an extra 20% off in early April. I was surprised to find this lens listed in the first place, and the sale brought the listed price of $1,566 (still a good deal) down to $1,252. The copy was rated in good condition except for a scratch or two on the front element, which might sound terrible but generally doesn’t affect image quality in practice. There was a 30 day return policy, so I’d have a chance to try it out and put it through its paces.
I was impressed when it arrived. It was packaged in its original box, included its instruction manual, warranty card with serial number1, lens hood, and even included its original, unopened lens bag. Other than a small ding on the lens body it looked perfect, far better than the “light grassing, scuffing, and paint chipping” I expected. The zoom, focus, and control rings all turned smoothly. The screen (yes, it had a screen) worked perfectly. And the glass with the “scratch”? Near-perfect except for a minuscule dot about halfway to the center. That ding would perhaps cause a minor problem if I took a photo directly into the sun, but it could be corrected in post. The only thing worn was the lens cap, which looked like it had been dragged across tar, but functioned fine otherwise.
Overall this lens looked and felt brand new, for half the price. The weather wasn’t very good, so it was difficult to test immediately, but I took photos inside of our pets and made a trip out to Portsmouth to get some street shots. The images of our pets looked great as portraits with sharp details and nice backgrounds. It was in Portsmouth where I started to notice a problem: decentering. Decentering occurs when the glass elements inside the lens are slightly out of alignment and cause soft focus in parts of the image. This can happen due to a manufacturing defect, or more likely in this case, if the lens gets knocked around or dropped. In my copy, the lower right corner was a little blurrier than the upper right corner and the lower left corner was significantly blurrier. I noticed it in an image of a building I took2 and verified it at home with a tripod.
While I planned to use the 24-70 mostly for portrait and environmental shots where I didn’t need sharp corners, I wasn’t willing to pay that much for a lens with an obvious defect like that. I have great primes that I can use for portraits and environmental shots anyway. For $1,200 I need the sharpness the lens is capable of. I reached out to Lensrentals to see if they could repair it, but they had me return it instead. Two weeks after it arrived, it was gone.
While I was bummed to lose out on the great deal, it may have worked out in my favor. At $1,252, it already cost ⅔ the price of Nikon’s very well-reviewed 180 – 600mm lens. That’s probably a better use of my money anyway since it’s sharper, faster focusing, and produces better images than my Sigma 150 – 600. My 24 – 120mm f/4 really is a good lens anyway. I recreated some of my 24 – 70 portraits with it and they look just as good. Putting my money towards the 180 – 600 or a Tamron 28 – 70 on sale is a better use of my cash.
So farewell Nikon Z 24 – 70mm f/2.8 S – I hardly knew you.
Relatively Ambitious 
Oddly enough, I have a Nikkor Z 24-70 F4S that has a blurry lower left corner that I put down to decentred elements. However, it seems to vanish at all but the widest focal length and even then, it’s not always present. I’ve not yet pinned down the issue, not that I can return it, but it seems not to be an issue most of the time. There was an odd occurrence where everything was sharp apart from the top left, which had motion blur. I could only put that down to sensor shift.
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