Handling and Features
Performance
Verdict
Specification

This compact wide aperture lens for DX compatible Nikon digital SLRs costs around £170 and provides a similar angle of view to a 50mm lens used on a 35mm camera and sports a silent focusing motor.

Nikon also produce a 35mm f/2D lens, which is compatible with full frame cameras as a wideangle optic and costs around £255. This lens has a slightly smaller maximum aperture and lacks silent focusing though.

One image can change us.

A picture, a moment can change the way we feel. Change how we see ourselves. Change our understanding and change the rules. Provoke and change history.

MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth. Sell the kit you’re not using to MPB. Trade in for the kit you need to create. Buy used, spend less and get more. Buy. Sell. Trade. Create.

Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX Handling and Features

Weighing only 200g, and being only 52.5mm long, this lens is exceedingly lightweight, compact and should be easy enough to stow away in a kit bag for when you need it without it being a burden. The lens balances well on the Nikon D300 used for testing.

Build quality is good, with the lens barrel being constructed from high quality plastics and the lens mount is made of metal. A silent wave focusing motor provides speedy and accurate autofocus, which can be overridden at any point by simply turning the focus ring. The slim focus ring is nicely damped, making it east to apply fine adjustments, although there is no distance window, or hyperfocal marking, so it can be difficult to tell which end is focused at infinity without checking through the viewfinder. The minimum focus distance of 30cm allows shooting in cramped environments.

The lens takes 52mm filters, which is a common size for Nikon prime lenses and as focusing is performed internally the filter thread does not rotate, which makes this lens perfect for use with polarising and graduated filters.

Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX Performance

This lens puts in an excellent optical performance at every aperture. Sharpness is already very good in the centre at maximum aperture and the quality towards the edges is fairly good.

Stopping the lens down improves sharpness across the frame, with peak quality being achieved between f/4 and f/5.6. Here the sharpness in the centre is outstanding and the quality towards the edges is excellent.

Resolution at 35mm	How to read our graphs
	The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on an Nikon D300 using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations are also well controlled, hovering just under one pixel in width towards the edges at most apertures. This level of fringing should pose few issues, even in large print sizes or harsh crops from the edges of the frame.

Chromatic Aberrations at 35mm

How to read our charts

Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on an Nikon D300 using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is very well controlled, especially for a wide aperture lens. At f/1.8 the corners are only 0.41 stops darker than the image centre and illumination is visually uniform at f/2.8.

Distortion is stronger than I would expect from a fixed focal length lens. Imatest detected 2.4% barrel distortion, which will become apparent in images with straight lines towards the edges of the frame. Luckily the distortion pattern is uniform, so this should be easy enough to correct in image editing software afterwards.

Flare is kept well under control, even when shooting into strong light sources like the sun. Contrast holds up well under these conditions too. A circular lens hood is supplied with the lens which does an excellent job of protecting the lens from extraneous light that may cause flare.

Out of focus areas are smoothly rendered at maximum aperture - ISO200, 1/2000, f/1.8, 35mm	The near focus distance of 30cm allows frame filling shots - ISO200, 1/400, f/11, 35mm
Contrast holds up well when shooting into the light - ISO200, 1/640, f/2.5, 35mm	Images have excellent sharpness from edge to edge when the lens is stopped down - ISO400, 1/100, f/8, 35mm
ISO200, 1/1250, f/8, 35mm	ISO200, 1/250, f/2.8, 35mm
ISO200, 1/200, f/8, 35mm	ISO200, 1/640, f/8, 35mm

Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX Verdict

With a price of around £170, this lens is a bit of a bargain for DX users looking for a compact high quality lens for low light shooting, or to isolate a subject by exploiting shallow depth of field. The optical quality is excellent for a lens at this price point, and that coupled with the good build quality and light weight should mean this lens finds its way into many a Nikon users' kit bag.

The Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX is a superb value prime lens that delivers excellent quality images.

Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX Pros
Excellent optical quality
Good build quality
Light weight
Keenly priced

Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX Cons
No distance markings for manual focusing

FEATURES
HANDLING
PERFORMANCE
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL

Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX Specification