Nikkor 35mm/F1.8 prime lens, why?

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Permalink Reply by Danny on September 11, 2010 at 2:55am

Thanks Ali Paul, it surely does help. I experienced problems indoor with both my zoom lenses which is frustating. If this is much less with this prime lens I consider buying it. Do you (or does anyone) have experience with this lens? It seems that the barrel distortion is quite high with this specific lens. I would like to know if this is true and if this is a big problem.

Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Matt Needham on September 11, 2010 at 5:43am

Back in the day SLRs all came with a normal, f/1.8ish prime. When you hear "it should be in the camera bag of every Nikon DSLR-owner" it's a combination of nostalgia, the faster aperture, and I assume it's not too expensive.

If pixel peeped primes usually are slightly sharper/better at resolving tiny detail than even the best zooms. In the real world (web and prints) I don't think you will see much difference between the sharpness of primes and zooms. I wouldn't worry about things like barrel distortion. You've probably been living with it all along, and people have been using Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lenses to take fantastic photos for 50+ years.

The reason to buy this lens is because you need a larger max aperture for low light and/or shallow DOF, and you want a "normal" field of view for an APS-C format cam, or a slightly wide field of view for a 35mm format cam. If you like to shoot in low light then this prime is slightly more than 1 stop faster than the fastest zooms, and probably at least 2 stops faster than most consumer/kit zooms. 2 stops is the difference between hand holding at 1/15th and 1/60th. I'd rather be hand holding at 1/60th! :)

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Permalink Reply by Greg maklae on September 13, 2010 at 6:35am

Danny, my feeling is, it depends on what you are going to use the lens for. The added light comes at a severe cost, extremely limited depth of field. I do only landscape, and shoot primarily in the f/11 to f/22 range for the added depth of field. Hence this lens would be of no use to me. For starters, I would turn on the noise reduction in your camera, set the ISO to 800 and give that a try first. Other alternatives are to use a flash, or a tripod. If using a tripod, make sure you turn the VR off. In the old, predigital days, an f /1.8 lens was needed because your ISO was in the 64 to 100 range or less, and the only way to change it was to use a different film. Now you have a great range, just by changing the camera setting.

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