Introduction
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Nikon has touted the Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8 S ‘Plena’ lens as its premium mid-telephoto portrait prime for Nikon’s Z-series cameras. Nikon says the lens was designed to capture fine detail hair and skin tones, reduce vignetting and produce circular bokeh with minimal cat’s eye. Night photography and other scenarios with limited sources of light should also benefit thanks to a fast aperture.
The lens weighs in at 995 g (2.15 lb) thanks in part to the glass within (16 elements in 14 groups) and the 98 mm (3.86″) diameter and 140 mm (5.51″) length of the lens. This is large, but it’s not far removed from counterparts such as the Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM or the Canon RF 135mm f/1.8 L IS USM.
The lens does have a large front element, taking an 82mm filter, but it’s also the same 82mm filter size as the Sigma 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art and Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM, so it’s not unusually large.
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What’s in a name?
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Along the barrel is an etched yellow ‘Plena’ logo in cursive. We previously saw the same treatment given to 2019’s Nikkor Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct.
Nikon says the lens was named for the Latin ‘plenum,’ which is loosely defined as a vase or space that is full. They’ve used it here as a reference to the lens being a space that is full of a user’s creativity.
The lens is still part of Nikon’s S-Line, a designation Nikon uses for its highest tier of Z-mount lenses, which are held to their own definitions of high build quality in terms of imperfections and optics.
Custom functions
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Along the barrel, Nikon has included two duplicate L-Fn custom function buttons, a focus ring and a customizable control ring.
The control ring can be set to adjust the aperture, ISO or exposure compensation. The ring is clickless and feels smooth but not loose. The two custom buttons both control the same setting and are duplicated to make the button accessible when the camera is held horizontally or vertically.
The lens is also weather-sealed and Nikon says the inclusion of metal components should help make it durable in the field.
Focus system
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Focus is driven by two stepping motors (STM), and Nikon says focusing is fast and quiet, making the lens a usable option for video.
During my hands-on, my experience seemed to confirm Nikon’s claims and I found the focus to be quick and fairly accurate. For video, it did indeed seem quiet, but we were limited to out-of-camera JPEG images for this initial review and weren’t fully able to test video clips to determine if any sound or vibration was introduced by the lens. Also in regards to video, I did notice some focus breathing, it’s not egregious but regardless it is present.
Along the left side of the base is a focus selection switch, which as you’d expect allows users to manually focus with the focus ring.
The ‘Plena’ has a minimum focusing distance of 0.82 m (2.69 ft), which is nothing special and no different than other premium 135mm lenses on the market.
Lens design
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If there’s one key point Nikon has hit in the announcement of the Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8 S ‘Plena,’ it’s the very round bokeh, that seems to go edge-to-edge with very little cat’s eye, even when wide open.
Nikon claims that ‘perfectly round circles of bokeh are visible even in the furthest corners of the frame. There’s no onion-ring or cat-eye bokeh, and no discernible color fringing or vignetting.’ However, in samples images we shot, there were some areas that were borderline on cat’s eye bokeh.
Nikon seems to have devoted most of its efforts to delivering attractive bokeh, starting with the easy stuff like giving it 11 aperture blades to make the bokeh round but also throughout the optical design of the lens.
It has used a large rear element to try to maintain brightness to the edge of the image but also to reduce mechanical vignetting, which causes off-axis bokeh to develop the distinctive cat’s eye shape that can occur.
Internally the lens has 16 elements in 14 groups, with four ED elements, one aspherical element and one SR lens element. The SR element isn’t something you see in most Nikon lenses; it has a higher refractive index for blue and short-wavelength light, which should help control axial chromatic aberration. Canon has its equivalent ‘BR’ element for its lenses, but curiously does not use it in its RF 135mm F1.8 L IS USM lens.
The use of an SR lens element to prevent colored fringing and the company’s most advanced coatings to minimize reflections (and hence maintain contrast) suggest the company has really focused on the lens’ rendering and character.
Bokeh performance
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Our hands-on time was during a cloudy and rainy gray Seattle day so I wasn’t able to run it through the usual paces of string lights at night, Seattle neon lights on the streets or even the sun bouncing off a lake, but we did manage to shoot some portraits wide open through the tree canopy to see how the lens would react to the pin drops of highlights poking through. In our out-of-camera JPEG images I saw very little cat’s eye and clean bokeh otherwise.
Depth-of-field when wide open also appears to have a smooth fall off and a background that becomes almost creamy, which helps create separation between foreground, background and subject.
I’ll have to reserve final judgment until we get our hands on a production model. I’m keen to fully test out the bokeh in multiple lighting conditions to see if the final performance lives up to a lens that deserves its own name.
Lens hood
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The lens comes packed with a lens hood. It snaps into place with a quick-release quarter-turn. I didn’t try any drop tests, but it seems sturdy enough.
There’s no tripod mount, but you also don’t need it. You may hear 135mm and think it’s a long lens, but since it’s a prime it’s fairly compact at a 98 mm (3.86″) diameter and 140 mm (5.51″) length.
In conclusion
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The NIKKOR Z 135mm f/1.8 S ‘Plena’ lens arrives October 2023 for a suggested retail price of $2500.
During our day with the lens, I came away optimistic that the ‘Plena’ may actually live up to the hype. Using a pre-production model, the images seemed clean and detailed with a smooth fall-off of focus and even brightness. The lens felt sturdy and well-machined. I also appreciated the weathersealing during our rainy Seattle walkabout.
In addition to our hands-on time with the lens, we were able to get some out-of-camera JPEG sample images. They don’t tell us everything, we’ll need to make some Raw images with a production model for a better evaluation, but they give us a few clues about how the lens should behave in use.
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This article comes from DP Review and can be read on the original site.
