I finally bought a used AF Nikon 35mm f/2 D.  For many many years I actually used the DX (APS-C) 35mm f/1.8 on my various FF Nikons.  Because I had it handily available, and its secret ability is that it actually has enough glass to cover the 24x36mm sensor.  With clever editing you can get a lot out of that sharp, but made for a smaller format lens.

So the Nikon 35mm f/2 from the 90’s has always intrigued me, and always been on my To Buy list, just for the sake of learning and gaining experience on this particular tool.  Folks online talk about how great it is in black and white and I believe them in my random testing.  It has pretty blurry corners, but stopped down it is a very sharp lens for street and architecture, or just general walk around photos.  The light falloff (vignette) wide open also doesn’t bother me as I can choose to accentuate it or remove it totally in post.

This 35mm is tiny and light, around the same size as the 50mm f/1.8D.  It’s definitely a lot smaller and lighter than my Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L.  Unfortunately this Nikon 35mm f/2 suffers from oily aperture blades, causing wild exposure jumps when you shoot at smaller apertures.  Would that be a deal breaker?  I first took it around town mounted on a D4 and then on a road trip up to nearby Asheville, NC to find out.  Here are a few photos to get a feel of how this lens renders:

Even with its aperture problems causing it to be iffy for responsible work situations, I think I’m still going to keep this lens.  The randomness is fine if you shoot raw and actually like surprises in terms of brightness of images.  In the sample image above of the temple and plumeria flowers, the 35mm f/2D is a very sharp lens at f/11 or even any of the diffraction inducing tiny apertures.  I’ve even had to turn down the Sharpness slider in the Nikon Picture Controls.  One drawback from shooting at small apertures is that most cameras will show every speck of dust on the sensor or lens, causing more time at the computer retouching.

The other reason I bought this lens is that my broken D4 needed a new wider lens and I think this 35mm makes a great “light” combo.  My D4 doesn’t have a lens locking pin anymore and I needed a featherweight AF prime that could still hold on to the body via the screwdriver and some gaff tape around the lens mount.  Sometimes by having a great camera that is also beat up, you really tend to not care too much about babying it and just treat it like a work truck.

From an aesthetic point of view it does look slick mounted on a Df.  There are lots of etched lines and colors to examine and appreciate from the overhead view.

Here are some more photos of the mini road trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains and NC, with some routes going to places I’ve never been to.  Hopefully we will have a nice colorful fall season with all the rain this summer.

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 35mm f/2 D:

This Thai Restaurant in Asheville was pretty good.  They actually had Chicken Larp Tacos on the menu (something I often wonder about every time I have Mexican food).  The larp itself was legit, but did not like the extra fusion step of adding the green and white sauce on top.  Asheville was great, the sleepy town of Sylva actually had a bubble tea shop, and late lunch was back in Georgia at Julep Kitchen.

As a closeup and detail lens, the 35mm f/2 is great.  Depending on what you are shooting it can look like a 50mm but without the restrictive minimum focus distance.  In closing here are some photos of something that would have been concurrent with this 35mm lens when it was new in the 1990s–a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Street Fighter II: Turbo!

And yep the 35mm f/2 really is an amazing lens for black and white imaging.