Nikon AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G Lens Review

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

At f/1.8, sharpness in the centre of the frame already approaches excellent levels, although performance towards the edges is only fairly good. Stopping down improves clarity across the frame, peaking at f/5.6. Here sharpness is outstanding across the frame.

MTF@35mm

How to read our charts 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 a Nikon D600 using Imatest.

Levels of chromatic aberrations are fairly low at every aperture, only just exceeding 0.5 pixel widths at maximum aperture. This low level of fringing should be difficult to spot, even in very large prints, and harsh crops from the edges of the frame.

CA@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 a Nikon D600 using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is quite severe. At maximum aperture the corners are 2.87 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination isn't achieved until stopped down to f/5.6 or beyond.

Imatest managed to detect 1.49% barrel distortion, which is a reasonably mild amount of distortion and is fairly typical for a fast-aperture wide angle lens. If straight lines are of the utmost importance, you'll be glad to hear that the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, which should make applying corrections in image editing software afterwards relatively straightforward.

Even though this lens lacks Nikon's latest Nano-Crystal coating technology, the lens is very resistant to flare and contrast holds up well when shooting into the light. A petal shaped hood is supplied as standard, which does an excellent job of shielding the lens from extraneous light, that may cause issues.

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