All-around travel lens: Nikon 24-200mm Z

My travel kit has consisted of the 14-30mm Z, 58mm f/1.4, and an ancient 75-150mm f/3.5E manual focus lens. I find the 70-300E a little too big and heavy to carry around while walking several miles a day while on vacation.  The 75-150E has punched above its price, giving me some nice photos that old up even while pixel peeping.

Nikon 75-150E full size crop at 150mm, from a distance of about 4300ft, or 8/10ths of a mile

But I've been itching to get an autofocus travel lens, one with a little more reach. On a trip to Osaka earlier this year, I went around looking for a used used Nikon 24-200mm Z. I had to find it, since I didn't bring the 75-150E, and I planned to attend my first matsuri (a Japanese traditional festival) in Tokyo. I found a clean copy at a reasonable price at Naniwa Camera Umeda, across from Yodobashi.

It's not an S line lens, but it is weather sealed and has VR. I'm not too happy that the maximum aperture is down to f/5.6 at 50mm, and f/6.3 at 85mm, but that's the price you pay for small, long reach, and cheap. The VR is ok, although it gets jumpy at the longer end of the focal range, more visibly when recording video. I was worried about not getting enough separation at f/6.3, but it's not that bad at 200mm.

Overall verdict: this is going to be my long travel lens.

And now for some sample images.