Product Description

A popular choice for travel photography and candids, the 35mm f/2D AF Nikkor offers autofocus capability, plus 62deg. picture coverage, additional depth of field and a wide maximum aperture. Compact size, light weight. Accepts 52mm filters HN-3 lens hood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48782 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Nikon
• Model: B00005LE72
• Released on: 2003-08-01
• Dimensions: .75 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
Nikon is a precision optical company with worldwide manufacturing, research and marketing capabilities. The Nikon name is equated with extraordinary photographic performance, innovation, precision and optical quality.PRODUCT FEATURES:Versatile wide-angle lens for a broad range of uses;Perfect lens for the photographer on the go;Fast f/2 maximum aperture make this ideal for low light, hand-held shooting.

Customer Reviews

Ideal lens for digital, but the aperture is disappointing
35mm is a bit of an unusual lens for a 135 size SLR. 28mm is the 'standard' wide-angle lens, although many photographers have opted for the slightly wider 24mm in recent years. This may explain Nikon's reluctance to really invest in this length of lens - the relatively slow f2 aperture compares poorly with Nikon's 50mm offerings, and even the 28mm is available - for a price - at f1.4.

Everything changes, though, with the advent of digital SLRs. Nikon's D1, D2, D75 and D100 all use a CCD which is the same size as APS rather than 135 film. The result is that all lenses behave as if they were about 1/3 longer. The humble 35mm is thus the equivalent of a 55mm, which is as close to the 50mm 'normal' length as makes no difference - at least until Nikon come up with a 33mm lens.

'Normal' lenses are the least exciting but most ubiquitous, and if you only intend to own one prime lens, you probably owe it to yourself to make it that one.

So how about this lens? I personally found the f2 maximum aperture to be more of an annoyance than a problem. I grew up on f1.8 lenses, and was never willing to shell out the extra for an f1.4. f2 really isn't that much slower - it just feels like it is.

For the rest, this is a nice, light compact lens with internal focusing so your polarising filter doesn't go spinning round when you don't want it to. In common with its 135 size 50mm equivalent, it gives a picture which is very close to what the eye sees. We found that its shortest focal distance was attractively close, although this isn't, of course, a macro lens.

One other benefit of using this with a digital Nikon SLR is that the smaller CCD size reduces the effect of aberrations, and this is therefore a 'better' lens on digital than on 135.

The alternative is to go with a Nikkor ED (extra-low dispersion) zoom. In principle the quality of a prime lens like this should always be better than any zoom. In practice Nikon's ED glass is so good that you don't see much difference. However, this lens is markedly better than my budget Nikkor 24-120 which I got with the camera (and don't really use much any more). If you can afford money, the ED zoom is probably worth it. If you are on a budget, though, and want to max out on quality with flexibility, this is a good buy, despite the disappointing aperture.

Perfect prime lens
This is the only prime lens I own on my Nikon D50 and I've always been very happy with it. Small, light, well built and very sharp.

It's great for portrait pics. With the crop factor of digital SLRs of 1.5, it works out the equivalent of being around 53mm in old 35mm terms - a great length for portraits. That's also why I favoured this over the (admittedly much cheaper) 50mm f1.8 lens (the crop factor for which makes it more like a 75mm lens - a bit too much of a telephoto, especially indoors).

I'm happy shooting this wide open at f2. Contrast goes down when using it wide open but for me, that is offset by the lovely shallow depth of field and the ability to use in low light.

Probably also useful to know that as of a few months ago, there is now a new Nikon prime (the Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S) that comes with AFS (meaning it will auto-focus on Nikon cameras that don't have the internal screw drive, i.e. D40, D40X, D60, D5000).

This lens model here, however, does not have AFS and will not auto-focus on the above mentioned cams, but will on other Nikon dSLRs that have the screw mechanism in the body (like my old D50).

All in all a great prime and no downsides I can think of.

Great little lense
A great little all round lense, I bought I because I got sick of lugging around my 17-55 and found 50mm lenses a bit to long on my D300.
Amazing clarity up around f4. Terrific for close up work as well.
I found the build a bit disappointing and theres much more play in the focusing ring than I'd expect but it doesn't seem to affect results. Worth every penny.