A Top-notch Lens Useful for Just about Anything
Written: Jun 21 '02 (Updated Jun 21 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Razor-sharp images, some consider it a legendary lens.
Cons: Some people like a wider lens, and may desire a AF version.
The Bottom Line: Sharp, fast, flexible. The 35 f/1.4 is a must have lens.
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| soothsayer's Full Review: Nikon AF 35mm f/1.4 Nikkor AIS |
This is a high-quality wide-angle lens suitable for just about any purpose. But you may want to stick with its traditional use, which is landscape and scenic photography. Many photojournalists favor using a 35mm focal length lens because a large subject area can be taken without too much extraneous background detail. Also these lenses tend to be very compact.
The Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 offers not only sharpness, but speed. This lens can open up to f/1.4, making it super flexible if you want to go the route of shooting in low light situations with 400asa film.
The minimum focus of the Nikon 35mm f/1.4 is 0.3m, or (1 foot). The quality of the photos taken by this lens is great. It is very sharp at all distances, and at all apertures. It is especially good at anything f/2.0 and smaller, with its optimum at f/4.0 to 5.6. The lens is able to sharply focus at short distances wide open because it uses Close-Range Correction (CRC).
Additionally, the sharpness can be attributed to the fact that this is not a zoom lens. To get sharp and well-saturated pictures, one should use a prime lens as opposed to a zoom. Prime lenses are those with fixed focal lengths. The reason for the sharpness is because prime lenses do not need a large number of glass elements to focus at something, zooms usually do. But don’t get me wrong, there are many well-designed and well-made zooms with excellent optics, but usually those are the exception to the rule. The 35mm f/1.4 uses 9 elements arranged in 7 groups.
Some have suggested that this lens flares easily, and ghosting may be a problem. It is possible, but not too easily. A lens hood could easily solve any problems. This lens uses the HN-3 lens hood.
The lens, like the majority of the Nikkors and Nikon Series E, take 52mm filters so one does not have to buy different sizes of the same filter for all their lenses. That, of course, has changed somewhat as Nikon has moved to a newer informal standard of 77mm and 62mm to take in account of faster (aperture, and motor speed) lenses being produced today.
This lens is perfect for traveling, weighting only 14oz, and only 2.7 inches long. It is excellent for just about any other purpose. It is also one of those legendary Nikkors people rave about. For those with AF, they may be missing out ;-)
Note: The Epinions introduction for this lens says it uses 62mm filters, that is incorrect. It also mentions something about A/M switch suggesting that the lens is AF, which is not true, this is a manual lens. It does use CRC, and the picture for it is correct.
Recommended:
Yes
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