Nikon Nikkor AF-S 35 mm f/1.8G ED review - Introduction

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 35 mm f/1.8G ED

12 June 2014

Arkadiusz Olech

1. Introduction

A perfect line-up of lenses in my opinion should take care of professionals and amateur photographers’ needs alike. That’s why I completely understand why there are 24, 28, 35, 50, 85 and 135 mm instruments available on the market in two versions. One version is for professionals, with apertures ranging from f/1.2 to f/1.4, designed without any compromises and offered for a price fully reflecting that lack of compromises and the other consisting of smaller and physically lighter f/1.8-2.0 constructions, with lower price tags but far more available for any amateur.

Such a policy has been employed by Leica for quite a long time: they offer f/1.4 Summilux lenses, f/2.0 Summicrons, f/2.5 Summarits, sometimes also f/2.8 Elmarits. Still the prices of Leica instruments, even those with an aperture as slow as f/2.5 of f/2.8, can be hardly called amateur- low.

When it comes to reflex camera optics producers it seems the Nikon company strives to be the closest to perfection – from some time they have been renewing their line-up of fixed-focal lenses very systematically. In the 50 mm class we’ve been shown the very expensive Noct-Nikkor AF-S 58 mm f/1.4G, a bit cheaper Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.4G and the cheapest Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.8G. Also their offer of 85 mm instruments have been refreshed. You can choose among two new constructions, the 1.8/85 and the 1.4/85. Add to that the very well-done Nikkor AF-S 28 mm f/1.8G and you have to admit the choice is impressive.

Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lately they took care of 35 mm devices. In 2010 they launched the new and expensive 1.4/35 mm lens and at the beginning of 2014 the Nikkor AF-S 35 mm f/1.8G ED was shown. Courtesy of the Foto Plus shop we managed to borrow that lens for our test and now we can present you the results in the following chapters – happy reading!

You are also invited to get acquainted with our test procedure, described in the article "How do we test lenses?" If you feel it’s still not enough, please go to our FAQ section where you can find some further explanation.