The Nikkor Z 180-600mm F5.6-6.3 VR ($1,899.95) is Nikon’s take on an affordable super telephoto zoom lens for photogs who want to capture images of wildlife, field sports, or other scenes where it’s not practical to get up close and personal with your subject matter. It’s a big lens, but internal zoom, a reasonable 4.3-pound carry weight, and optical stabilization make it practical to use for handheld photography. The lens works well enough to earn our Editors’ Choice award for the Nikon Z system, and serves as a more affordable option for photogs who can’t stomach paying $3,250 for our premium Editors’ Choice telephoto prime, the Nikkor Z 400mm F4.5 VR S.

Design: Internal Zoom and Weather Sealing

Telephoto lenses run big, there’s just no getting around the laws of physics when talking about camera optics. The 180-600mm follows suit. It measures in at a sizable 12.4 by 4.3 inches (HD), but isn’t too much to carry at 4.3 pounds. Its zoom is internal, so the lens never gets longer or shorter, which sets it apart from telescoping zooms like the Tamron 150-500mm F5-6.7 Di III VC VXD (8.3 by 3.7 inches, 4.1 pounds), which is also available for Z cameras.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

I don’t mind carrying a bigger lens if it has internal zoom, as the advantages win out over telescoping lenses. It takes less physical effort to set the focal length with an internal zoom for one, you’ve got to apply some torque with big lenses that extend to zoom. On the other hand, the Nikkor Z 180-600mm always takes up a ton of room in your camera bag, while the Tamron 150-500mm is decently short at 150mm.

The Nikkor Z 180-600mm puts its 25-element/17-group optical formula into a barrel that’s mostly metal, with a few bits of plastic here or there. It includes internal seals to reduce instances of dust and moisture ingress, similar to what Nikon puts in its Z mirrorless cameras, so you can use it comfortably in inclement weather. I took it out for bird photos during a winter snowfall with no ill effects.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The front element supports anti-smudge fluorine, a material that repels moisture and grease so water beads off without a mark and it only takes a wipe of a microfiber cloth to wipe off a fingerprint. The lens has threads for 95mm glass filters if you’d like to add UV or a polarizer, just keep in mind that large filters can be expensive; a Hoya multicoated UV filter costs around $100 in the 95mm size, for example. If you’re worried about damage to the front glass, the included hood adds plenty of protection.

In addition to the hood, the lens ships with front and rear caps, a removable tripod collar, and a soft cloth pouch. The collar is set in place via thumb screw and rotates 360 degrees. Its missing detent stops at 90 degree increments, but includes paint marks so you can set it plumb by eye. The foot has both standard (1/4-inch-20) and large (3/8-inch-16) tripod threads, but omits dovetail cuts, so it can’t mount directly into an Arca-Swiss tripod head and you’ll have to attach a quick release plate.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The Nikkor Z 180-600mm is a full-frame lens, but also works with Nikon Z cameras with DX sensors, including our Editors’ Choice-winning Z50II. Its angle of view is tighter with the smaller sensor format, but it serves the same basic purpose. If you think the Nikkor Z DX 50-250mm F4.5-6.3 doesn’t have enough zoom power for the images you want to take, the 180-600mm makes sense.

Full-frame owners should find the 600mm reach to be enough for most subjects, though I’ll say from experience that you’ll often want more zoom for bird photography. The Nikkor 180-600mm works with both rear Z system teleconverters. With the 1.4x extender it becomes a 252-840mm F8-9, and with the 2.0x it is a 360-1,200mm F11-13. You’ll need plenty of of light to get great results with either extender. I didn't use one with the zoom in testing and still saw my ISO range pretty high under gray, overcast skies and when making images under tree canopy.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Controls: Where’d the Focus Ring Go?

Describing the Nikkor Z 180-600mm’s on-lens controls as minimal feels like I’m underselling Nikon’s choices here. Most big zoom lenses have a slew of toggle switches and function buttons, but that is simply not the case with the Z 180-600mm. The lens has only two switches—A/M to change between automatic and manual focus, and a focus limiter to switch between full range or distant subjects only (6 meters to infinity).

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Most telezooms with optical stabilization include a set of switches to change modes and turn the system on or off, but with the 180-600mm you need to pop into the camera menu to disable stabilization, and there are no panning or other settings to adjust. The camera and lens recognize panning motion automatically and adjust stabilization in kind.

The zoom includes four copies of the L-Fn button, placed 90-degrees apart and positioned just in front of the zoom ring so you can easily access them. Nikon camera bodies set L-Fn to focus lock (AF-L) by default, but you can set the buttons to perform any number of functions ranging from basics like AF-ON to more specialized functions like cycling through different areas of interest for focus acquisition. The latter is a useful option for sport and wildlife photography—with a push of a button I can swap between a wide focus area to try and lock focus on uncooperative subjects like small swallows flying through the air, or go back to a small area of interest to better find animals hiding in branches and brush.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The 180-600mm’s zoom ring is positioned right in the middle of the barrel and adjusts without the need to apply excessive torque. I am able to zoom the lens in and out with just my fingertips, a benefit that comes with its internal zoom optics.

The zoom ring is joined by a flexible Control Ring, a feature that’s exclusive to Nikon Z lenses. The Control Ring does double duty for manual focus, it switches away from its regular function (either EV, f-stop, or ISO, set via the camera menu) and controls focus when the lens or camera is in manual focus mode. Switch back to autofocus and the ring reverts to the function set in the camera.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

I was a little thrown by the lack of a dedicated manual focus ring when I just started using the lens, but found it wasn’t too hard to live without after using the zoom regularly over a period of about five months. I opted to set the Control Ring to work as a full-time manual focus override, even if the lens is set to autofocus. With a lens like this, the most likely scenario where I’ll want to set focus manually is in a situation where a bird or animal is partially obscured by branches in the foreground. In those situations, the autofocus may lock onto objects in the foreground if left entirely to its own devices. The downside to this approach is that you’ll have to go back into the camera menu and reassign the function ring when using other lenses, assuming you want the Control Ring to perform a different function with a lens that has a discrete manual focus ring.

Autofocus: Reliable Results for Most Scenes

I tested the Z 180-600mm with the full-frame Z 8 and APS-C Z50II for wildlife photography. The lens’s autofocus motors didn’t let me down in either case. The zoom focus smoothly and quietly delivered accurate results in the field. Its STM focus system can take a beat to drive the lens from distant to close subjects, though is nearly instant to snap between two planes at distance. It’s a good idea to use the focus limiter when photographing action at distance.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The focus is fast enough to keep up with the subjects I was able to find during testing, including a northern rough-winged swallow ferrying materials from a shore line to a river bank to make its nest. If you’re photographing really, really fast action like motorsports, getting a lens with faster linear focus motors is worthwhile; the Nikkor Z 70-200mm F2.8 VR S and Z 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 VR S both drive focus in an instant.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The lens focuses as close as 4.3 feet (1.3m) at 180mm and 7.9 feet (2.4m) at 600mm. Those are long working distances, but good enough for about 1:4 macro reproduction, so you can catch the small details in the world. It’s shy of what you’ll want for truly tiny subjects: if you want a lens for insects, small flowers, or jewelry, you’ll want to use a macro lens with 1:1 life-size reproduction, Nikon’s best is the Nikkor Z MC 105mm F2.8 VR S.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Image Quality: Sharp Pictures with Softly Defocused Backgrounds

I matched the Z 180-600mm with the 45MP Nikon Z 8 for an Imatest SFRplus resolution test. The lens scores in the very good range at maximum aperture at 180mm (3,800 lines) and 600mm (3,700 lines), and crosses into excellent territory (4,000 lines) at f/8-11. That’s the real sweet spot for the lens as it starts to lose clarity due to diffraction at smaller f-stops, so unless you need more depth of field in an image you should avoid using the zoom from f/16-36.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The lens relies on digital corrections to compensate for some slight pincushion distortion and a vignette at maximum aperture. If you use your camera in JPG mode these happen transparently, in the background, as long as you leave the Auto Distortion and Vignette Control settings to their enabled defaults. If you use your camera in Raw format you should check if your processing software includes a profile. Adobe includes a one-click fix for this lens in its Lightroom and Lightroom Classic software, for instance. If your software doesn’t have support for this lens specifically I’d urge you not to worry. While you may notice some slight distortion in architectural studies and cityscape images, the distortion and vignette are slight enough that you won’t notice them.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

I’m pretty happy with the flare resistance. I used the lens in all kinds of weather and didn’t have a problem with loss of contrast or significant false color when photographing backlit scenes. Likewise, the background blur is very clean and free of color fringing (longitudinal chromatic aberration) in the fall off between focus and blur. The blur itself is generally quite smooth and avoids the frenetic look that some narrow aperture telezooms show. You shouldn’t expect busy backgrounds to disappear into nothing, but are less frenetic when compared with the lightweight Nikkor Z 600mm F6.3 VR S and its diffractive phase fresnel optics.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)