Nikon 35mm f/1.4
© 2007 KenRockwell.com

Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 AI-s. enlarge. get it here and here, brand new.

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December 2007

Introduction     top

Intro   Specifications    Performance    Recommendations

The Nikon 35mm f/1.4 was found in every photojournalist's bag throughout the 1970s and 1980s as their standard lens.

As of 2000, with faster films and good f/2.8 zooms, they had been largely abandoned.

As of 2008 with digital, they have been forgotten, although they work extremely well on the Nikon D3.

The Nikon 35mm f/1.4 is a full-frame FX lens. It works on DX digital, but I won't cover that here.

The Nikon 35mm f/1.4 was introduced, in the original F mount, in 1969. It was Nikon's first multicoated lens and has been used by NASA in space. Its optics have remained the same throughout both AI and AI-s versions, and is still manufactured today. All versions share exemplary mechanical quality.

Optically this is your father's 35mm f/1.4. It's performance, outstanding for the 1970s, has been surpassed by the modern 35mm f/2.0D AF and the 28mm F/1.4D AF.

Nikon 35mm f/1.4 at f/5.6. Note 9-blade diaphragm.

Nikon 35mm f/1.4 at f/1.4.

Specifications    top

Intro   Specifications    Performance    Recommendations

Name: Nikon calls this The Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 AI-s.

Optics: 9 elements in 7 groups. Traditional spherical design with floating elements for close-range correction (CRC). Multicoated.

Actual Focal Length: 36.0mm.

Diaphragm: Wonderful nine-bladed diaphragm. Stops down to f/16.

Size: 2.4444" extension from flange x 2.6425" diameter (62.11 x 67.12mm), measured. Nikon specifies 2.7" (67.5mm) around by 2.9" (74mm) long. The fattest part is the focus ring.

Weight: 13.450 oz. (381.25g), measured. Nikon specifies 14 oz. (400g).

Hood: HN-3 screw-in metal hood. I don't use it; ghosts aren't a problem.

Performance    top

Intro   Specifications    Performance    Recommendations

Overall

Typical performance for a spherical f/1.4 wide lens: blurry wide open, improving greatly as stopped down. This was state-of-the art until the introduction of the 28mm f/1.4 AF-D aspherical in 1993.

Sharpness on the Nikon D3:

f/1.4: Low contrast everywhere due to the veiling effects of spherical aberration. Very blurry in corners with loads of coma. Sharp most places, just veiled.

f/2.0: Sharp and contrasty in center since spherical aberration is now gone. Gets softer toward sides. Corners still very soft and loaded with coma.

f/2.8: Sharp and contrasty throughout most of frame, with a softer band at about a 15mm radius. Far corners still blurry.

f/4: Very sharp almost everywhere. Slightly softer at r=15mm, far corners softer.

f/5.6: Sharp all over. Farthest corners just a little softer.

f/8: Excellent all over, optimum aperture overall.

f/11: Excellent all over, farthest corners optimum.

f/16: Slightly softer due to diffraction.

Lateral Color Fringes

None on the D3.

It has some lateral magenta/green secondary chromatic aberration on film.

Flare and Ghosts

It has next to no ghosts if you have your light source in the image.

Nikon 35mm f/1.4

Distortion

It has typical barrel distortion. At infinity on film or FX digital, use +1.5 in Photoshop CS2's lens distortion filter to rectify it. This isn't a fact or a specification, it's the result of my research that requires me to climb a bluff on a very clear day and shoot the ocean's horizon.

Falloff (darkened corners)

Typical for its era, there is strong falloff wide open (f/1.4) on film and FX digital.

It improves greatly at f/2, and is gone completely by f/2.8.

Macro

It has close-range-correction (CRC) and focuses very close, to about a foot. Although you can get down to about a 5" x 7" subject, there is a good deal of barrel distortion.

Vibration Reduction

None.

Handheld on an FA I get sharp results consistently at 1/15.

Performance on Fuji Velvia film:

f/1.4: lots of light falloff. Lots of coma in corners and spherical aberration in center give low contrast all over. Resolution is good.

f/2.0: falloff. Coma. Getting sharp

f/2.8: very sharp, no more falloff. Odd loss of definition in 9-11 o'clock sector 15mm out

f/4.0: very sharp. Odd loss of definition in 9-11 O'clock sector 15mm out

f/5.6: great.

f/8: great

f/11: great

f/16: swell. Random underexposure with FA in aperture-priority (A) mode. Press the depth-of-field preview button and hold it while you make the exposure to cure this, with the FA.

Nikon 35mm f/1.4. Note delicate rear element protector pin.

Recommendations    top

Intro   Specifications    Performance    Recommendations

Try not to use this lens at f/1.4 where the image quality is relatively poor. It has low contrast due to various kinds of spherical aberration and a lot of light falloff. It also has a lot of coma, so points of light at the sides will instead look like little batwings.

What a lot of light falloff at f/1.4 means is that even though it's f/1.4 in a center hotspot of the image, at the sides you really are only getting the light equivalent to f/2 or f/2.8.

Use this lens is if you typically shoot at about f/2.8, at which aperture it performs better than most other lenses.

If you shoot at smaller apertures you don't need this expensive f/1.4 lens.

If you really shoot at larger apertures (as I do) you'll prefer the very, very expensive 28mm f/1.4D AF.

Generally the much more recently designed and far less expensive 35mm f/2.0D AF lens gives better performance at every aperture, although the 35/2 AF gets softer when you are too close. The 35/2 AF also focuses much closer.

If you are fixated on the f/1.4 aperture, remember that due to the huge light falloff that you really are only getting f/1.4 in a hotspot in the center of the image, and that at f/2 both the 35/2 AF lens and the 35/1.4 are giving the same image quality.

I think that this fine lens' time has passed.

I saw lower sharpness 15mm from the center of the image at f/2.8 in two different samples of lens in two different media, telling me that this is inherent in the design of the 35mm f/1.4. I saw it with this lens pictured here on my D3, and I saw it with the first sample I owned back in the 1990s on film.

More Information: Nikon Japan and Nikon USA.