Nikon 35mm lenses compared

Interesting that the f/1.8 consistently gave images that were 0.7EV underexposed - making it effectively an f/2.8 lens or thereabouts...?
However going by these results, it's performance is unquestionably better than the f/2 especially when the price is taken into acccount.
 
Love my 1.8, but if I ever go down the FX route there's no way I'd keep it. Apart from the vignetting, I'm not sure if 35mm is all that useful a focal length on FX, I'd have the AF-S 50mm f1.4 at around £300.

Dreaming :D
 
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ronnus said:
Love my 1.8, but if I ever go down the FX route there's no way I'd keep it. Apart from the vignetting, I'm not sure if 35mm is all that useful a focal length on FX, I'd have the AF-S 50mm f1.4 at around £300.

Dreaming :D
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Its a very useful focal length on FX, but I wouldn't use the 1.8 on an FX body either. Having said that there are one or two people around using just that combination to great affect
 
I knew it was a star - so much so that this lens alone persuaded me to stay with Nikon.
 
Not if you're an available light photographer who favours the 35mm focal length.

It was a no-brainer for me. Having used a 35L when I shot Canon it was the one lens that was a straight 'BUY' when it was announced. It's been every bit as good as I'd hoped (and prompted a later 24/1.4 purchase).

I wasn't ever that keen on the 35/2 though - it wasn't a lens I ever loved.

OT - I see you're from Exmouth, my wife's home town.
 
Radiohead said:
OT - I see you're from Exmouth, my wife's home town.
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85 f/1.4; 105 f/2.5 and 135 f/2 are my prime portrait mainstays. For work it's zooms nowadays unfortunately, such is the beast we serve.
35mm is more of a walkabout lens when I can't be bothered lugging the 24-70 around.
I'd love an 85mm f/1.2, but until Canon wakes up and builds something that matches Nikon's current pro series bodies (and the Agency invests in new kit), I'm stuck with what will fit the 'works' kit.

Moved here to be near the folks who are advancing into total decrepitude and will need more assistance as time goes on - I'm from South London (Bexley) originally.
It's pretty quiet - not as bad as Budleigh across the bay, but sometimes I feel like I'm already dead and in limbo...
Luckily, work keeps me away often enough to keep from going insane.
 
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It is pretty quiet down there. Her Dad lived there for 30 years or so and they still have family down there. She lived in Carter Avenue as a kid.

Out of interest - what's your opinion on the 135/2?
 
Radiohead said:
It is pretty quiet down there. Her Dad lived there for 30 years or so and they still have family down there. She lived in Carter Avenue as a kid.

Out of interest - what's your opinion on the 135/2?
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Hard work initially - the DC feature is not quite as intuitive as I'd expected despite it being fairly straightforward in principle: + or - to set foreground or background defocus and set the ring to the equivalent of the aperture set.
Keen to see it do it's stuff at max. aperture, lots of seemingly OOF images resulted at first, but they just looked that way until I 'peeped' a bit closer - wide-open the images only 'appear' slightly soft.
Now I've got the hang of it it's superb - maybe not quite as sharp wide-open as the 105 f/2.8 DC or 200mm f/2 primes, but stopped down, it's pin-sharp right through to f/11, losing it a wee bit again at f/16.

Since buying it I've used it for 90% of my portrait work in favour of my 85mm f/1.4 and 105mm f/2.5 (old non-DC version) which were my previous studio mainstays.
 
cobra_lite said:
Hard work initially - the DC feature is not quite as intuitive as I'd expected despite it being fairly straightforward in principle: + or - to set foreground or background defocus and set the ring to the equivalent of the aperture set.
Keen to see it do it's stuff at max. aperture, lots of seemingly OOF images resulted at first, but they just looked that way until I 'peeped' a bit closer - wide-open the images only 'appear' slightly soft.
Now I've got the hang of it it's superb - maybe not quite as sharp wide-open as the 105 f/2.8 DC or 200mm f/2 primes, but stopped down, it's pin-sharp right through to f/11, losing it a wee bit again at f/16.

Since buying it I've used it for 90% of my portrait work in favour of my 85mm f/1.4 and 105mm f/2.5 (old non-DC version) which were my previous studio mainstays.
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Interesting - thank you. I've been offered a mint one for a very good price so am seriously thinking about it.
 
User Name said:
Why is the 35G so bad? Looks crap compared to the others?
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It all depends on who was doing the testing, and how the testing was managed.

In all honesty having looked at real images from all three lenses I fail to see how they came to the conclusions, or achieved the results that they did.

All three versions are fine optics capable of producing superb images.
 
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