Review: Nikon 35 F2 D – The old guard

What is character in a lens, and why should you care?

Start up the machine, we’re going to dive into the coveted war-cry for photographers: character.

Allegedly, character comes from Middle England, then from French, then from Greek. Here’s how it could be defined back in the day when this lens was manufactured:

Greek kharaktēr ‘a stamping tool’. From the early sense ‘distinctive mark’ arose ‘token, feature, or trait’ (early 16th century), and from this ‘a description, especially of a person’s qualities’, giving rise to ‘distinguishing qualities’.

And the character in the 35mm F2D is why I have held onto this lens long after I sold the Nikon 35mm 1.4 G. This tiny little thing has the same character that I see in photographs taken by my parents in the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s. Every time I open up the box in our basement of these prints, I find this imperfect look to most of the images, but they’re truly full of depth and emotion.

I look for that in lenses. Clinical “IQ” (whatever that really is supposed to measure) is great, but what’s the point if your images do not even make you personally feel good?

Pointless.

Character is a tremendously important feature of a lens to me, and it could have the perfect IQ, but if it is flat and boring I already hate it.

I happily give up sharpness at wider apertures for the character this beauty lets out. See the whole section below on how impressive or unimpressive sharpness is! And while I don’t talk about character and sharpness together, they do interplay so you will see me discuss character a little in the sharpness section of this review.

Good for your film camera, good for your light sucking digital sensor

In the digital-space-age-race for the biggest sensor in your camera bag, the fastest possible lens, and a combination that lets you shoot at ONE TRILLION ISO, you may get lost keeping up with camera manufacturers dropping mirrorless lenses like it is quite literally hot. Note: See Nikon’s new mirrorless 50mm that is a 0.95. OOF.

This lens was a main stay for many film photographers and has remained as one of Nikon’s smallest 35mm focal length, simply because the digital world brought the ability for faster and bigger glass with less repercussions.

If you need .095 – 1.4 for the shallowest depth of field in the world on your digital sensor, great. Get at it. However this raises an important point for the current state of technology: sensors are so damn good, I’m not sure why you need anything beyond f2. On full-frame cameras this is quite shallow as it is. On crop-sensor cameras it is the equivalent of 2.8. I also have a Fuji xpro3 and the equivalent lens is an f2. It’s also SHALLOW

The Nikon d750 that this lens is attached to can push and pull about 5-stops of exposure in post without complaining. That is a lot of latitude for error. In a way, that particular camera body has made me a less able photographer, as being a stop or two under or overexposed meant nothing to me. I could fix later.

Much like any of the other “D” version lens Nikon made, they offer this perfect blend of consistent character across the focal lengths and a unique character I have not found in any other len/camera combination.

Keep in mind, by going for this tiny lens, you must accomodate by using a Nikon film or digital camera that can accomodate it. Any modern dSLR with its own auto-focus motor within the body is going to work. That size you give up compared to other smaller mirrorless cameras is the tiny price to pay.