Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S Review – The Lens That Does 80% of Life

I went fully mirrorless in December 2020. After a long run of Nikon DSLRs — a D90 that taught me photography, a D750 that gave me full-frame — I sold most of the F-mount kit and committed to Z (keeping the D750 as a backup and picking up a D500 for birding the same month). The very first lens I bought to carry the everyday load was the Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S. Five years and one Nikon Z8 later, it has barely come off the camera. It is, without exaggeration, the lens that handles 80% of my actual life.

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Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S (opens in a new tab)

The do-everything standard zoom. Sharp wide open, fast, weather-sealed, with an OLED info panel — the lens that basically lives on my Z8 for family life, travel, and events.

Here’s the verdict up front, no burying the lede: for a dad who wants one lens that does almost everything, the 24-70mm f/2.8 S is a 10/10. Wide enough for the room, long enough for a portrait, fast enough for a dim living room at bath time. It is the workhorse — the lens you reach for first and put down last — and it earns that status every single day.

This isn’t a spec dump — Nikon’s site does that better than I can. This is what it’s actually like to live with the 24-70mm as the lens that’s permanently mounted on a family camera. The thread running through all of it is simple: whatever the situation throws at you, this lens is already on the camera and already up to it.

What “The One Lens” Actually Means

Every photographer eventually has the same realisation: the lens you use most is the one that’s on the camera when the moment happens. You can own the sharpest 85mm portrait prime in the world, but if it’s in the bag while your kid does something hilarious in the kitchen, it photographs nothing. The 24-70mm f/2.8 is the answer to that problem. It’s broad enough to never need swapping for the ordinary moments of a day, and good enough that you rarely wish you had.

Twenty-four millimetres at the wide end is genuinely wide — enough to fit a cluttered living room, a group around a birthday cake, or a sweeping holiday vista into the frame. Seventy at the long end isn’t telephoto, but it’s a perfectly flattering portrait length: tight enough to isolate a face, with enough working distance that you’re not crowding a shy four-year-old. In between sits 35mm and 50mm, the two focal lengths most people would happily live on for street, documentary, and everyday shooting. One lens, and you’ve covered the focal lengths that account for the overwhelming majority of pictures anyone actually takes.

That’s the whole pitch. It isn’t the most exciting lens in the bag — the 70-200mm f/2.8 is more dramatic, the 14-30mm f/4 is more specialised — but it’s the one that does the most work for the least fuss.

Family Life: The Bath-Time Test

This is where the 24-70mm quietly justifies its price for a dad. Kids don’t pose, don’t hold still, and don’t give you a second take — and they’re frequently indoors, in light that ranges from “mediocre” to “frankly terrible.”

The constant f/2.8 is the hero here. A living room at dusk, a single lamp on, a toddler in the bath under one weak ceiling light — these are the exact scenes where a slower kit zoom forces you to crank ISO into noisy, mushy territory. f/2.8 lets in twice the light of an f/4 lens, which means a stop lower ISO, which means cleaner files and faster shutter speeds to freeze a moving child. Paired with the Z8’s eye-detection autofocus, the keeper rate at indoor family moments is in a different league to anything I shot on DSLRs.

And because it’s permanently mounted, it’s always ready. I don’t miss the shot fumbling for a lens cap or deciding which glass to grab. I lift the camera, the green box snaps to my daughter’s eye, and the frame is taken before she’s done whatever she was doing. For family photography, “always on the camera and always fast enough” beats “technically superior but in the bag” every single time.

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Nikon Z8 Body (opens in a new tab)

The 45.7MP flagship this lens calls home — fast subject-detection AF and IBIS that does the stabilising work the lens leaves out. The body half of my everyday kit.

Travel & Events: Pack One, Cover Everything

When we travel, bag space and back strain are real constraints, and the temptation to over-pack lenses is strong. The 24-70mm is the lens that lets me resist it. For a city break, a day trip, or a family holiday, it genuinely can be the only lens I carry — wide for the architecture and the landscapes, normal for the street scenes and the meals, short-telephoto for the candid portraits. I’ll sometimes add the 14-30mm f/4 for big interiors and the 70-200mm for reach, but if I could take exactly one, this is it.

Events are the same story. A christening, a school play, a wedding I’m attending rather than shooting — situations where you get one chance at the moment and often poor light to do it in. The 24-70mm handles the room shots, the table portraits, and the candid in-between moments without a lens change, and the f/2.8 keeps the shutter fast enough that a dim church or a darkened school hall doesn’t ruin the frame. The OLED info panel on top is a genuinely useful touch here — a glance tells me exactly where I am in the range and what aperture I’m at, without taking the camera from my eye.

Sharpness: It Out-Resolves Nothing on the Z8

The Z8’s 45.7MP sensor is merciless on glass — it shows up optical weaknesses that lower-resolution bodies politely hide. The 24-70mm f/2.8 S holds up. It’s sharp wide open at f/2.8 across most of the frame, gets clinically sharp by f/4, and stays excellent through to the diffraction-limited end of the range. Corners are strong, distortion is well controlled, and the bokeh from f/2.8 at 70mm gives portraits genuine subject separation — not 85mm-prime levels, but more than enough to lift a face off a busy background.

This matters because the alternative — a kit zoom that the sensor out-resolves — means you’ve effectively paid for megapixels you can’t use. With the 24-70mm S, the lens is never the limiting factor in the file. On a body this demanding, that’s exactly what you want from your everyday glass: you stop blaming the lens, the same way the Z8 made me stop blaming the body.

Z 24-70mm f/2.8 vs 24-120mm f/4 vs the f/4 Kit

You don’t choose the 24-70mm f/2.8 in a vacuum. The realistic alternatives are Nikon’s own 24-120mm f/4 S and the cheaper 24-70mm f/4 kit zoom — three takes on the same do-everything idea, at very different prices and weights.

The honest breakdown: the 24-120mm f/4 is, for a lot of dads, the more sensible lens. It’s a stop slower, but it’s a kilo lighter feeling in the bag, costs meaningfully less, and the extra reach to 120mm covers ground the 24-70mm can’t. If you shoot mostly in decent light and value range and portability, buy the 24-120mm and don’t look back. The kit 24-70mm f/4 is the budget on-ramp — genuinely good, lighter still, and the smart pick if money’s tight.

The f/2.8 earns its premium in two specific situations: low light and background separation. If you regularly shoot dim interiors — bath time, evening events, restaurants — that extra stop is the difference between a clean shot and a noisy one. And if you want creamier portrait bokeh, f/2.8 at 70mm delivers it. I bought the f/2.8 because family life happens indoors and after dark, and I’ve never regretted it. But I won’t pretend it’s the obvious choice for everyone — the 24-120mm is the lens I’d recommend more often than not.

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Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S (opens in a new tab)

The lighter, cheaper, more travel-friendly alternative. One stop slower, but a longer range and a kilo less in the bag — the sensible choice if f/2.8 isn't a deal-breaker.

Long-Term Reality: What the Workhorse Costs

After five years, the limitations are real but few — and none are about image quality. The honest one is weight and size. At ~805g, paired with a Z8 you’re well over 1.7kg around your neck. For a deliberate shoot or an event it’s nothing; for a spontaneous family outing where you just want a camera, it’s a real presence. On those days I sometimes reach for a compact prime instead — the same trade-off the Z8 itself forces, just one tier down.

The second is price. This is a premium S-line lens, and it’s priced like one. The 24-120mm f/4 does most of the job for less, and the kit f/4 does a lot of it for far less. I’d never tell someone to stretch beyond sensible to own the f/2.8 — if the budget’s tight, the cheaper zooms are genuinely excellent.

The third is no in-lens stabilisation. The 24-70mm relies entirely on the camera body’s IBIS. On a Z8, Z6, Z7, or Z5 that’s a non-issue — the body does the work. But pair it with an unstabilised body and you get no stabilisation at all. And while f/2.8 is fast for a zoom, it isn’t a fast prime — for extreme low light, an f/1.4 or f/1.8 prime still pulls ahead.

What hasn’t been a problem in five years: reliability, the weather sealing (it’s shrugged off drizzle and dust without complaint), the autofocus speed, or the build quality. The customisable control ring and OLED panel still feel like premium touches I use daily rather than gimmicks. This is a lens built to be used hard for a decade, and mine is well on its way.

Is the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S worth it?

If you want a single lens that handles most of real life, yes. It is wide enough for interiors and group shots, long enough for a flattering portrait, and fast enough for dim indoor light. The sharpness holds up against the 45.7MP Z8 sensor, the build is properly weather-sealed, and the constant f/2.8 means your exposure does not change as you zoom. It is heavy and expensive, but as a do-everything standard zoom it is a 10/10.

Should I get the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 or the 24-120mm f/4?

It comes down to light versus weight. The 24-70mm f/2.8 gives you a brighter aperture for dim rooms and better background separation, but it is heavier and pricier. The 24-120mm f/4 is a stop slower yet offers more reach, weighs roughly a third less, and costs less. For low-light family and event work, the f/2.8 wins. For travel and a lighter everyday carry, the 24-120mm is the smarter buy.

Does the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S have image stabilisation?

No, the lens has no in-lens VR. It relies entirely on the camera body’s in-body image stabilisation. On a Z8, Z6, Z7, or Z5 that is not a problem — the IBIS gives you several stops of help. But on a body without IBIS, you get no stabilisation at all, so factor that in before pairing it with an unstabilised camera.

Is the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S good for family and indoor photography?

It is excellent for it. The constant f/2.8 lets in enough light for a living room at dusk without cranking ISO into ugly territory, and the eye-detection AF on a Z body locks onto kids who refuse to hold still. Twenty-four millimetres is wide enough to fit a chaotic playroom in frame, and seventy millimetres is long enough for a clean portrait across the dinner table.

How heavy is the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S for everyday carry?

It is around 805g, so paired with a Z8 you are carrying well over 1.7kg. For a deliberate shoot or an event that is no issue, and a good strap distributes the load. But for a spontaneous family outing where you just want a camera around your neck, it is a real presence. Many dads keep a small prime for those days and reserve the 24-70mm for when image quality matters most.