The Nikon Z 50-250 mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX is an ideal companion for the Nikon Z50, partly because of the built-in image stabilization.

For the Nikon SLR cameras, the range of full-frame (FX) Nikkor lenses was much larger than the range of APS-C (DX) Nikkor lenses. That was a shame, because DX lenses are smaller, cheaper and more compact than FX lenses. Fortunately, the Nikon Z50 was accompanied by two DX zoom lenses as soon as it was introduced. We already reviewed THE NIKON Z 16-50mm F/3.5-6.3 VR DX, which was very good. Now it’s the turn of the Nikon Z 50-250 mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX. With these two zooms, you can photograph anything you want, from wide to telephoto. For portraits or shots where you want to achieve a nice background blur, you could consider a Nikon Z 50 mm F1.8 S. Only a macro lens remains on a Nikon Z50 owner’s wish list.

BUILD AND autofocus

With a weight of 400 grams, a length of 11 cm, this is a telephoto zoom that you can use undisturbed for an entire holiday. There are no AF/MF or VR switches on the lens; you can choose this on the Nikon Z50. As with almost all telephoto zooms under a thousand euros, the lens gets longer when using long focal lengths. The lens design consists of 16 lenses (one of which is made of high-quality Extra Dispersion glass) in 12 groups. The diaphragm consists of 7 rounded blades, with which you can get a beautiful background blur at the longest focal lengths. The closer to the subject and the further the background, the stronger the effect.

AF is quiet and fast, but possibly slightly less fast than the AF of the Nikon Z6 or Z7.

IMAGE QUALITY

The Nikon Z 50-250 mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX may be a relatively inexpensive lens, but the optical performance is fine. At the shortest zoom setting, the sharpness in the center is high, but the sharpness does decrease slightly towards the corners. As soon as you zoom in a bit, the corners improve a bit, so that around 135mm, the result is completely uniform. If you zoom out a bit further, you get a bit more gradient to the corners. The center sharpness is slightly lower at 250mm than at 50mm, but the difference is not as big as we see with some other consumer zooms. 

The Nikon Z 50-250 mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX does not have much difficulty with backlight. Flare won’t generally bother you very much.

Distortion is also not a problem in practice. In RAW, of course, the lens does suffer from some distortion, but that is already corrected perfectly in the camera. 

This lens also has little trouble with vignetting. At full aperture, it’s less than a stop, and once you stop down one stop, it’s negligible. If you also want to reduce the vignetting at full aperture, you will have to do that in post-processing.

Nikon Z 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX @ Nikon Z50 SAMPLE IMAGES

Curious about the performance of the Nikon Z 50-250 mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX in practice? Click on the button below and visit our web gallery with sample images taken with the Nikon Z 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX and a Nikon Z50. The images can be downloaded in full resolution to be viewed at 100%.

conclusiON: REVIEW Nikon Z 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR DX oN Nikon Z50