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


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Is anybody using the Nikon 35mm 1.8 DX AF-S?

 

I've recently bought one and it shows a lot of CA where my 16-85 DX doesn't.  Most images need CA correction using the advanced tools  in LR rather than the Lens Profile dealing with it automatically. My 50mm 1.8 DX didn't suffer from it at all. 

 

It's too time consuming to fix it in post  when my other lens can do the job better.

 

Have I got a bad copy or is this a common issue with this lens?

 

Thanks

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I love the lens because it's so fast and you can shoot really close up with it - I have some images that look like they've been shot with a macro lens - It's very versatile - great for cityscapes and landscapes too - but the CA can be a problem. Usually correctible in LR but sometimes I have to go into Adobe Camera RAW and use the brush tool to get rid of all of it. I get a lot of dual red and green fringing (e.g. a white building will have red fringing along one wall and green fringing along the roof) but LR usually deals with it. 

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I've tried 2 copies of this lens and both were very poor for stock photography. The images were very sharp in the center but around a quarter of each side of the images were very soft. That's also where the worst of the CA's were, and it is a known problem with this particular lens.

 

I found that for stock use when you need high quality results across the whole frame, or for anyone who is doing photography professionally or wants to make large prints for themselves, the lens isn't up to the job. It's a shame as the center is fantastic and focus speed is very fast and also accurate.

 

All IMHO of course. :)

Geoff.

 

Thanks Geoff, 

 

It's such a shame because the 50mm equivalent is a really good lens but just a bit too long on DX. Did you get another similar prime to replace it or did you stick with zooms?

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I love the lens because it's so fast and you can shoot really close up with it - I have some images that look like they've been shot with a macro lens - It's very versatile - great for cityscapes and landscapes too - but the CA can be a problem. Usually correctible in LR but sometimes I have to go into Adobe Camera RAW and use the brush tool to get rid of all of it. I get a lot of dual red and green fringing (e.g. a white building will have red fringing along one wall and green fringing along the roof) but LR usually deals with it. 

Thanks Marianne,

 

I agree it potentially is a great lens but the CA is too much. Its the same sort of CA that you describe. Even with the eye dropper in LR I can't shift it or it leaves a beige band where the CA used to be. I might see if there is a third party equivalent that is better.

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Thanks Geoff,

 

It's such a shame because the 50mm equivalent is a really good lens but just a bit too long on DX. Did you get another similar prime to replace it or did you stick with zooms?

I agree about the 50mm. I actually had the older 50mm Nikon that didn't have a focus motor (the f1.8D I think it was) which was a fantastic lens. I really wanted a wider angle though. I had to go back to using my old Nikon 18-70mm kit lens for quite a while but recently was able to upgrade to the Sigma 18-35mm Art lens. I wasn't planning on buying another zoom as I wanted the higher quality of a prime lens, but the Sigma has an excellent reputation as being comparable in quality to the best primes. I have to say that I absolutely love it. It isn't cheap but the quality of the images are stunning.

 

Geoff.

 

I've read good things about the ART range - I'll have a read about the 18-35mm.

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Nikon 35mm 1.8 DX AF-S

 

I must be lucky as i have this lens and never have problems with it.

 

No QC fails either. Good lens for me. Been using it for two years or so.

 

But i guess you can get rogue products sometimes.

 

Adrian

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One of our sons has the Sigma 18-35mm, and it's a terrific lens. The IQ is excellent, it's f1.8, internal zoom and focus, and all for $800. What's not to like? (it is a bit of a beast) 

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I'm another who's only had good results with the 35mm you mention. Sharp across the frame, as good as any 50mm that I've used in that respect. It does have more CA than most primes, but I've always found it easily correctable. Probably the best designed-for-DX lens I've used. I was using it on a D7000 - I can't say how it performs with a higher resolution sensor, but certainly better than, say, the 16-85 Nikkor, supposedly the best of the variable aperture zooms, which was beginning to lose it on the D7000.

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Perhaps it is a quality control issue on the part of Nikon because the DxO review of this lens is not great. Experienced photographers here are saying it is excellent but the DxO scores for sharpness and CA are fairly poor for a prime lens. Could it be that different copies of the lens are very variable?

 

I'm also wondering about the wisdom of investing in a fairly expensive wideangle zoom rather than a very decent prime - the Sigma 35 art lens is only a little more expensive than the 18-35 DX zoom. The advantage of buying such a fantastic lens (by all accounts) is that if, Michael ever moves up to a full frame system, it would still be usable. Just a thought.

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I'm another who's only had good results with the 35mm you mention. Sharp across the frame, as good as any 50mm that I've used in that respect. It does have more CA than most primes, but I've always found it easily correctable. Probably the best designed-for-DX lens I've used. I was using it on a D7000 - I can't say how it performs with a higher resolution sensor, but certainly better than, say, the 16-85 Nikkor, supposedly the best of the variable aperture zooms, which was beginning to lose it on the D7000.

 

Interesting, because that is my camera body/lens set up. I've no problems with the sharpness. With the 16-85 CA is almost a non issue when using a LR lens profile. Maybe I've got a sample that is worse than most. 

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Perhaps it is a quality control issue on the part of Nikon because the DxO review of this lens is not great. Experienced photographers here are saying it is excellent but the DxO scores for sharpness and CA are fairly poor for a prime lens. Could it be that different copies of the lens are very variable?

 

I'm also wondering about the wisdom of investing in a fairly expensive wideangle zoom rather than a very decent prime - the Sigma 35 art lens is only a little more expensive than the 18-35 DX zoom. The advantage of buying such a fantastic lens (by all accounts) is that if, Michael ever moves up to a full frame system, it would still be usable. Just a thought.

 

The possibility of going Full Frame with my next upgrade is something that is starting to figure in my thoughts about future lens. The 16-85  (kindly recommended for me by David K on this forum) has been a superb lens for me. However I stay with DX I'm not sure how it would cope with a 24mp D7200.

 

The 24-70 is the obvious replacement. The Tamron 2.8 seems to get rave reviews at half the price of Nikon.

 

On the wider end I really liked the Nikon 16-35 F4 when a friend let me borrow it.

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Perhaps it is a quality control issue on the part of Nikon because the DxO review of this lens is not great. Experienced photographers here are saying it is excellent but the DxO scores for sharpness and CA are fairly poor for a prime lens. Could it be that different copies of the lens are very variable?

 

I'm also wondering about the wisdom of investing in a fairly expensive wideangle zoom rather than a very decent prime - the Sigma 35 art lens is only a little more expensive than the 18-35 DX zoom. The advantage of buying such a fantastic lens (by all accounts) is that if, Michael ever moves up to a full frame system, it would still be usable. Just a thought.

 

I wondered when buying the 18-35mm Sigma if it was the best move considering it's only for cropped frame cameras like mine, but the conclusion I came to was that with high quality lenses holding their value very well, I wouldn't lose out too much from selling it when I'm able to afford a full frame camera. I would likely only lose a couple of hundred after taking into account what I got back from a sale, and would have had a lot of use out of it for that amount of money. 

 

If you look at the depreciation in terms of the cost of renting a lens it can be cheaper to buy and then sell if you are careful.

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Perhaps it is a quality control issue on the part of Nikon because the DxO review of this lens is not great. Experienced photographers here are saying it is excellent but the DxO scores for sharpness and CA are fairly poor for a prime lens. Could it be that different copies of the lens are very variable?

 

I'm also wondering about the wisdom of investing in a fairly expensive wideangle zoom rather than a very decent prime - the Sigma 35 art lens is only a little more expensive than the 18-35 DX zoom. The advantage of buying such a fantastic lens (by all accounts) is that if, Michael ever moves up to a full frame system, it would still be usable. Just a thought.

 

The possibility of going Full Frame with my next upgrade is something that is starting to figure in my thoughts about future lens. The 16-85  (kindly recommended for me by David K on this forum) has been a superb lens for me. However I stay with DX I'm not sure how it would cope with a 24mp D7200.

 

The 24-70 is the obvious replacement. The Tamron 2.8 seems to get rave reviews at half the price of Nikon.

 

On the wider end I really liked the Nikon 16-35 F4 when a friend let me borrow it.

 

 

I have that Tamron and it is very good for a zoom although it doesn't match up to the cheaper primes (e.g. Nikkor 50mm 1.4D)  at 36MP for edge sharpness. Probably perfect on a D750 or D610 though.

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Many years ago, after wearing out my 24mm f2.8 I decided to treat myself to a 24mm f 2.0 which was at about twice the price. Although I was shooting B&W film at the time, I found the f2.0 gave much more ghosting and flare. I suspect that with many of these faster lenses there's a tradeoff - what you gain in speed may be lost in image quality.

 

 

 

The possibility of going Full Frame with my next upgrade is something that is starting to figure in my thoughts about future lens. The 16-85  (kindly recommended for me by David K on this forum) has been a superb lens for me. However I stay with DX I'm not sure how it would cope with a 24mp D7200.

 

Lately I've been using a 10.5mm DX lens on my full frame D610 which has auto-masking for DX lenses. It works but the resulting file size seems smaller than it would be, had it been shot with my D300 body, and the image is less "correctable" in ACR.

 

fD

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  • 1 month later...

I've been looking into this lens, but in doing so, read some of the negative things mentioned here by some. I've heard some complaints about the 50mm 1.4 AF-S lens too. Some reviewers have said the older 50mm 1.4 is a better bet.

I don't have a lot of money to spend, so when I do spend it, I want to make sure the prime lens I buy is helpful in passing QC. I defnitely don't want a lens that may have CA issues (aw DHill mentioned). Right now, I only have the 18-55 that came with the D5300 and a 55-200. 

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How about considering the Nikon AFS Nikkor 50mm F1.8G. You can shoot this wide open without worrying about Coma or Chromatic Aberation wrecking your shot and it's super duper sharp, & if you want something more wide, but don't mind manual focus then the Nikon Nikkor 28mm F2.8 AIS is still a Top performer, Super sharp & contrasty from wide open and focuses as close as their macro lenses.

 

https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-50mm-f1-8g

 

Parm

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One of our sons has the Sigma 18-35mm, and it's a terrific lens. The IQ is excellent, it's f1.8, internal zoom and focus, and all for $800. What's not to like? (it is a bit of a beast) 

I fully concur, I have this lens for my APSC Camera and it is fantastic - I'd say even better than many primes. 

I shoot on Canon though. 

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Perhaps it is a quality control issue on the part of Nikon because the DxO review of this lens is not great. Experienced photographers here are saying it is excellent but the DxO scores for sharpness and CA are fairly poor for a prime lens. Could it be that different copies of the lens are very variable?

 

I'm also wondering about the wisdom of investing in a fairly expensive wideangle zoom rather than a very decent prime - the Sigma 35 art lens is only a little more expensive than the 18-35 DX zoom. The advantage of buying such a fantastic lens (by all accounts) is that if, Michael ever moves up to a full frame system, it would still be usable. Just a thought.

 

The possibility of going Full Frame with my next upgrade is something that is starting to figure in my thoughts about future lens. The 16-85  (kindly recommended for me by David K on this forum) has been a superb lens for me. However I stay with DX I'm not sure how it would cope with a 24mp D7200.

 

The 24-70 is the obvious replacement. The Tamron 2.8 seems to get rave reviews at half the price of Nikon.

 

On the wider end I really liked the Nikon 16-35 F4 when a friend let me borrow it.

 

 

 

You can't really go wrong with a 24-70 2.8 on a full frame, say something like a D800 for example. What you notice immediately apart from the picture quality is also the way it's built.

 

Just as an example of my experience, I had a 50mm 1.8 and tbh it was very hit and miss on a D800 so I sold it. It was fine on the D300 but that was not really any good because it effectively became a 75mm.

 

A lot of Nikkor (Nikon) lenses are great on a lot of their cameras but don't necessarily resolve that well when you put them onto a full frame.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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