Nikon 35mm f/1.4G AF-S Nikkor

SLRgear Review
April 19, 2011
by Andrew Alexander

In the leadup to Photokina 2010, Nikon announced (among other things) a new wide-angle prime - the 35mm ƒ/1.4G. The new lens isn't a replacement for the 35mm ƒ/2, which (at the time of writing) has not been discontinued, but rather complements it as a larger, more exotic optic.

The lens was designed to fill the FX sensor (or 35mm film) frame, unlike its DX cousin, the 35mm ƒ/1.8. When mounted on a DX body, the 35mm ƒ/1.4 provides an equivalent field of view of 52mm.

The lens takes 67mm filters, ships with the petal-shaped HB-59 hood, and is currently available for approximately $1,800.

Sharpness
Mounted on the sub-frame D300s, the 35mm ƒ/1.4G produced soft results wide open at ƒ/1.4. Slightly sharper performance was obtained by stopping down to ƒ/2, showing decent sharpness in the center and tapering off to light softness in the corners. It isn't until ƒ/2.8 that we start seeing very sharp results throughout the frame, with only very light softness in the corners; stopping down further provides only marginal improvements, as maximal sharpness is obtained at ƒ/4 and onwards. Diffraction limiting begins to appear on the D300s at ƒ/8, but it isn't until the lens is fully stopped-down at ƒ/16 that there's any practical impact on sharpness, where it still produces sharper results than when used wide open at ƒ/1.4.

Results were similar when the lens was mounted on the full-frame D3x, with some interesting twists. At ƒ/1.4 the lens is still fairly soft across the frame, but with more pronounced softness in the corners. Stopped down to ƒ/2, there's a slight improvement in central sharpness - the pocket of sharpness in the center improves - but this is at the expense of corner softness, which also increases slightly.

Continuing to stop down this lens on the D3x improves performance, as excellent results begin to appear from ƒ/2.8 onwards. However it's interesting to note at ƒ/2.8 and ƒ/4 that both the central region and the extreme corners are sharp, but there is light softness in the areas inbetween. It probably isn't enough to get too worried about, but for images where edge-to-edge sharpness is paramount, you'll want to stop down to ƒ/5.6, the sharpest aperture for this lens, where the effect is minimal.

Diffraction limiting seems to set in at ƒ/8, but again, there's no real impact on performance until the smallest aperture setting of ƒ/16, where (similarly to DX performance) the edge-to-edge sharpness is better than noted at ƒ/1.4.

Chromatic Aberration
There is a fairly high amount of chromatic aberration present in images shot with this lens, noticeable more at aperture settings below ƒ/8. CA takes the form of purplish-blue fringing in areas of high contrast.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
Corner shading isn't really a problem on the sub-frame D300s, with the only noteworthy results being extreme corners that are 1/3EV darker than the center, when set to ƒ/1.4. At any other setting, light falloff is insignificant.

On the full-frame D3x however, it's somewhat more significant: at ƒ/1.4 light falls off to make the extreme corners almost a full stop darker than the center; at ƒ/2, this falloff lowers to around 2/3EV. At ƒ/2.8 and smaller apertures, falloff results are a quarter-stop or less, which isn't really significant.

Distortion
The 35mm ƒ/1.4G does fairly well to restrict distortion, showing a consistent +0.3% barrel distortion in the corners when mounted on the D300s. On the D3x, there's slightly more distortion, with a maximum result of +0.5%.

Autofocus Operation
The 35mm ƒ/1.4G uses an AF-S focusing motor, making it compatible with all modern Nikon camera bodies. Autofocus is fast, about one second to slew through infinity to closest focus, and is near silent. Autofocus results can be overridden at any time by just turning the focus ring.

Macro
The 35mm ƒ/1.4G isn't designed as a macro lens, but provides 0.2x magnification when used at its minimum close-focusing distance of just under 12 inches.

Build Quality and Handling
The 35mm ƒ/1.4G is fairly large for a prime lens, at 600 grams (just over 21oz). The balance feels good on larger cameras, but on smaller bodies, the weight of the lens makes the combination a bit front-heavy. The lens mount is metal and the 67mm filter threads are plastic.

As the price point will attest, Nikon views this lens as fairly exotic, however it doesn't sport many premium features other than top-notch build quality. That said, it probably doesn't need things like a focus limiter or vibration control. Its only switch is an autofocus / manual focus selector; other features include a windowed distance scale, with a depth-of-field marking for ƒ/16. There is no infrared index, but the lens will focus past infinity. As you would expect, attached 67mm filters will not rotate on the front element.

The 3/4-inch wide focus ring is rubber, a series of ribs running parallel to the body of the lens. A slight increase in resistance lets you know you've reached the end of the focusing distance, but the ring will continue to turn. There is no lens extension during autofocusing. The lens uses nine rounded diaphragm blades to make up the aperture, which should produce pleasing out-of-focus elements.

The HB-59 lens hood around 1 5/8 inches in depth. The hood is a bayonet-mount that reverses onto the lens for easy storage, but denies access to the focus ring in this configuration. The lens is nicely resistant to obvious flare from bright light sources such as the sun, but the hood works well to reduce generalized veiling flare.

Alternatives

Nikon 35mm ƒ/1.8G DX ~$200
While it's not technically a full-frame lens, hard vignetting only shows up in medium to long distances, or when the lens is stopped down. It's actually sharper and offers better performance for CA at the wider apertures than the ƒ/1.4, while having about the same distortion and light falloff. The largest advantage is price, being fraction of the price compared to the ƒ/1.4 - you pay a lot for the extra 2/3 stop of light-gathering ability.

Nikon 35mm ƒ/2 ~$390
We haven't managed to get copy of this lens to test yet, but this was the full-frame 35mm lens for Nikon, and only one-stop ''slower'' than the new ƒ/1.4G.

Carl Zeiss 35mm ƒ/1.4 Distagon T* ~$1,800
We haven't yet tested the Carl Zeiss 35mm ƒ/1.4, but we imagine it would be a high-quality object, without autofocus.

Sigma 30mm ƒ/1.4 EX DC HSM ~$490
Similarly to the Nikon 35mm ƒ/1.8 DX, the Sigma 30mm ƒ/1.4 does work on FX Nikon bodies, albeit with much more noticeable circular vignetting. The lens has much more corner softness than the Nikon, but is slightly sharper wide open; stopped down, it's quite similar. CA performance is better, corner shading is slightly worse, and distortion is about the same; the price is drastically lower.

Conclusion
For this lens, it comes down to essentially one qualification. If you're a Nikon shooter who needs the absolute fastest 35mm lens, either for light-gathering ability or for the ability to put the background way out of focus, then for $1,800 it's either the Carl Zeiss or the Nikon 35mm ƒ/1.4G. It's not perfect - we had hoped that $1,800 would buy a bit sharper performance at ƒ/1.4 - an aperture this lens will probably spend most of its time set to - but it's still very good, and when stopped down a bit, becomes quite excellent indeed.

Product Photos

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.