Nikon 35mm 1.8s seems to be popular with Wedding Photographers

On this site it is the lens with the most pictured, only 2nd to the infamous 58mm 1.4g. Is it representative of how good a lens is suited to this particular genre? I am not sure.

In general when I researched this lens, I found quite polarizing opinions.

This reviewer very much pretty much loves the falloff the 35mm 1.8s:


I agree the falloff is really quite nice from the pictures he posted.

Cameralabs,dpreview or mirrorless comparison pointed out that with brigther highlights the bokeh gets a little bit nervous. It is visible for sure.



What is super interesting is, that Haruo Sato seems to have been involed in creating this lens according to this site: https://cameragossip.github.io/nikon-lens-patents.html

He is the designer of the infamous 35 / 58mm 1.4g for F-Mount which had polarizing opinions as well.

I used the 1.8s for a while and personally I can agree with both sides. The bokeh highlights bother me, but the focus falloff can be really beautiful. Rendering wise I can definitely say it is a league above the typical 1.8 lens.

Super interested in your experience or opinions.

I'm a professional wedding photographer, and I regularly hire several Z shooters to operate as second shooters for me. I also know quite a number of other working pros who have bought into the Z system.

Among the 6-8 I either hire or talk to, I only know 2 that have purchased the 35mm f/1.8. All the rest are waiting for a 1.4 or 1.2 version. They seem to have thoughts similar to my own, which are basically, why buy the same focal length twice?

So, perhaps it is popular among wedding photographers, but I'm not convinced that it's going to sell all that well among the demographic.

Biggs23 said:

I'm a professional wedding photographer, and I regularly hire several Z shooters to operate as second shooters for me. I also know quite a number of other working pros who have bought into the Z system.

Among the 6-8 I either hire or talk to, I only know 2 that have purchased the 35mm f/1.8. All the rest are waiting for a 1.4 or 1.2 version. They seem to have thoughts similar to my own, which are basically, why buy the same focal length twice?

So, perhaps it is popular among wedding photographers, but I'm not convinced that it's going to sell all that well among the demographic.

Click to expand...

35 and 85 were two lenses that I heard all about when I was figuring out how to shoot weddings years ago.

I personally found that 35 doesn’t work well for me and that I’d rather been on a 24.

Mattitude V1 said:

Biggs23 said:

I'm a professional wedding photographer, and I regularly hire several Z shooters to operate as second shooters for me. I also know quite a number of other working pros who have bought into the Z system.

Among the 6-8 I either hire or talk to, I only know 2 that have purchased the 35mm f/1.8. All the rest are waiting for a 1.4 or 1.2 version. They seem to have thoughts similar to my own, which are basically, why buy the same focal length twice?

So, perhaps it is popular among wedding photographers, but I'm not convinced that it's going to sell all that well among the demographic.

Click to expand...

35 and 85 were two lenses that I heard all about when I was figuring out how to shoot weddings years ago.

I personally found that 35 doesn’t work well for me and that I’d rather been on a 24.

Click to expand...

Same. I don't shoot FL between 35 and 60mm almost ever. Wider and longer all the time, but 30-60mm is basically a desert for me.

Sukuwea Enikkusu said:

https://mywed.com/en/analytics/lens-list/

On this site it is the lens with the most pictured, only 2nd to the infamous 58mm 1.4g. Is it representative of how good a lens is suited to this particular genre? I am not sure.

In general when I researched this lens, I found quite polarizing opinions.

This reviewer very much pretty much loves the falloff the 35mm 1.8s:

https://alikgriffin.com/nikon-z-35mm-f1-8-s-review-sample-photos/

I agree the falloff is really quite nice from the pictures he posted.

Cameralabs,dpreview or mirrorless comparison pointed out that with brigther highlights the bokeh gets a little bit nervous. It is visible for sure.

https://www.cameralabs.com/nikon-z-35mm-f1-8s-review/

https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/z-...35mm-1-8g-vs-35mm-1-4g-vs-sigma-35mm-1-4-art/

What is super interesting is, that Haruo Sato seems to have been involed in creating this lens according to this site: https://cameragossip.github.io/nikon-lens-patents.html

He is the designer of the infamous 35 / 58mm 1.4g for F-Mount which had polarizing opinions as well.

I used the 1.8s for a while and personally I can agree with both sides. The bokeh highlights bother me, but the focus falloff can be really beautiful. Rendering wise I can definitely say it is a league above the typical 1.8 lens.

Super interested in your experience or opinions.

Click to expand...

I agree with your sentiments that the bokeh highlights can be nervous at times but I see that in a number of 35's like the Signa 35 f1.4 Art etc. Like you also say, the overall rendering of the Nikon 35 f1.8S is a league above the rest. I had both the Nikon 35 f1.4G and the Sigma 35 f1.4 Art but sold the Nikon after a long comparison period of having both. The Nikon had slightly nicer bokeh but the Sigma was sharper wide open and the results were a bit better from the Sigma in most instances. Once I got the Nikon 35 f1.8S, I sold the Sigma, the Nikon 35 f1.8S is nicer overall IMO. Sharper at f1.8 than the Sigma, nicer bokeh, less CA and just nicer rendering overall, IMO.

I like the 35mm focal length as it is basically what you see is what you get FOV.

--
Lance B
https://www.flickr.com/photos/35949907@N02/?
http://www.pbase.com/lance_b

I love the lens, although admittedly I do love the focal length. But over the years I couldn't quite get myself to love the size and the heft of the Sigma, so I grew to like the 35mm 1.8 G lens quite a bit. The S-Line lens, though, is so much nicer.

Here's another review to consider:


Thom Hogan was also positive about it, and he admitted to not loving the focal length.

Regardless, if you're using it for weddings and the bokeh is your concern, I think you should consider that clients are going to be focused on the subjects (the people), not the bokeh. And I personally would choose a 35 (not a 24) with an 85 for such an event (or a 24-70 f/2.8). A 24 can start to distort people.

KR Photo said:

I love the lens, although admittedly I do love the focal length. But over the years I couldn't quite get myself to love the size and the heft of the Sigma, so I grew to like the 35mm 1.8 G lens quite a bit. The S-Line lens, though, is so much nicer.

Here's another review to consider:

https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-z-35mm-f1-8-s

Thom Hogan was also positive about it, and he admitted to not loving the focal length.

Regardless, if you're using it for weddings and the bokeh is your concern, I think you should consider that clients are going to be focused on the subjects (the people), not the bokeh. And I personally would choose a 35 (not a 24) with an 85 for such an event (or a 24-70 f/2.8). A 24 can start to distort people.

Click to expand...

Neither a 24mm nor a 35mm are portrait lenses, but rather environmental lenses. Distortion of people really isn't a concern.

It has really upped my game for video. I use it at f1.8 with the eye AF for solo content creation and the look is cinematic. Fantastic lens on the Z6II.

Biggs23 said:

KR Photo said:

I love the lens, although admittedly I do love the focal length. But over the years I couldn't quite get myself to love the size and the heft of the Sigma, so I grew to like the 35mm 1.8 G lens quite a bit. The S-Line lens, though, is so much nicer.

Here's another review to consider:

https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-z-35mm-f1-8-s

Thom Hogan was also positive about it, and he admitted to not loving the focal length.

Regardless, if you're using it for weddings and the bokeh is your concern, I think you should consider that clients are going to be focused on the subjects (the people), not the bokeh. And I personally would choose a 35 (not a 24) with an 85 for such an event (or a 24-70 f/2.8). A 24 can start to distort people.

Click to expand...

Neither a 24mm nor a 35mm are portrait lenses, but rather environmental lenses. Distortion of people really isn't a concern.

Click to expand...

Right, I know that, but for group shots, at 24 people at the ends can start to look off. Stepping back with a 35 seems to give more natural results.

Sukuwea Enikkusu said:

https://mywed.com/en/analytics/lens-list/

On this site it is the lens with the most pictured, only 2nd to the infamous 58mm 1.4g. Is it representative of how good a lens is suited to this particular genre? I am not sure.

In general when I researched this lens, I found quite polarizing opinions.

This reviewer very much pretty much loves the falloff the 35mm 1.8s:

https://alikgriffin.com/nikon-z-35mm-f1-8-s-review-sample-photos/

I agree the falloff is really quite nice from the pictures he posted.

Cameralabs,dpreview or mirrorless comparison pointed out that with brigther highlights the bokeh gets a little bit nervous. It is visible for sure.

https://www.cameralabs.com/nikon-z-35mm-f1-8s-review/

https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/z-...35mm-1-8g-vs-35mm-1-4g-vs-sigma-35mm-1-4-art/

What is super interesting is, that Haruo Sato seems to have been involed in creating this lens according to this site: https://cameragossip.github.io/nikon-lens-patents.html

He is the designer of the infamous 35 / 58mm 1.4g for F-Mount which had polarizing opinions as well.

I used the 1.8s for a while and personally I can agree with both sides. The bokeh highlights bother me, but the focus falloff can be really beautiful. Rendering wise I can definitely say it is a league above the typical 1.8 lens.

Super interested in your experience or opinions.

Click to expand...

LMAO - get off of the gear nerd bubble. Despite what the YouTube says, pros don’t actually care about obscure lens qualities, they choose a 35 because it’s a solid focal length for events AND the 35/1.8 S because it’s the only 35 Nikon has for mirrorless.

I can assure you, not a single actual pro photographer that I know is pixel peeping or talking about “fall-off” or other silly qualities. They want to know “will it work the way I expect? Will it last more than a few years? Is this what I need to pay the bills”

A fast aperture 58 for instance let’s you blur out a distracting background - really fast glass used to be pretty exotic so it gave you the ability to distinguish your work technically. That’s not so much the case anymore.

Amateurs (and nothing wrong with being amateur) think 90% gear and 10% making photos.

Pros think 90% making photos (get the next job) and 10% gear. Yah, a few pros do talk a lot about gear now - and it’s because y’all feed the algorithm that promotes that content and subsequently gets them paid for talking about gear (what a strange world when Picasso gets paid more for talking about his brushes and paint than his actual art)



if you’re taking about who the lens designer is, you’re not thinking like a pro photographer - MAYBE a Director of Photography on motion picture as they’re a whole ‘nother level of picture nerds of which I’ve yet to see a stills photog match the nerdiness of a DP. Then again, a DP is going to be in your eyeballs far long with much more money on the line.

johnsonjj23 said:

LMAO - get off of the gear nerd bubble. Despite what the YouTube says, pros don’t actually care about obscure lens qualities, they choose a 35 because it’s a solid focal length for events AND the 35/1.8 S because it’s the only 35 Nikon has for mirrorless.

I can assure you, not a single actual pro photographer that I know is pixel peeping or talking about “fall-off” or other silly qualities. They want to know “will it work the way I expect? Will it last more than a few years? Is this what I need to pay the bills”

Amateurs (and nothing wrong with being amateur) think 90% gear and 10% making photos.

Pros think 90% making photos (get the next job) and 10% gear.

Click to expand...

Ha, "get off of the gear nerd bubble" -- for some reason that cracks me up. Probably because a lot of us here are here to talk endlessly (and probably uselessly) about gear.

I do like your statement about pros thinking 90% about making photos and 10% about gear. Although one responder to this thread did report that the wedding shooters he or she hires were holding out for a 1.4 or 1.2 version of the lens. I guess in the interim, they're not getting the shot. It seems odd to me to hold out, though, because one could use the 1.8 for a year or two and then still recoup quite a bit of the outlay for it -- and have been getting the shots at 35mm.

Z35/1.8s pales in comparison with Z50/1.8s. The transition is visibly better, but the resolution is worse.

Here’s the problem: once you decide to go for rendering instead of resolution, you have to decide a characteristic size, a zoom ratio that clearly yells ‘zoom no further, no more details to see!’. You don’t have a sense of scaleless-ness that the image whether taken in whole or cropped, are valid presentations of this world full of details. I think the 35s stops at maybe Z6 resolution and cannot get much further.

For travel I prefer the 50s path - details down to pixel level so the camera captures what I overlook. The 35 has a lovely rendering, but is meant not to be pixel-peeped.

My copy shows halo even at f/5.6, an aperture usually meant to be virtually flawless.


Look at the text. A faint black halo characteristic of beautiful transition lenses. The label in real life is plain so the nuanced transition between black and yellow is from the lens

Taken from this snap

Haloes decrease the acuity of finer details, but the image as a whole looks better. The 105/1.4E I tried showed haloes like this, too.

It's a great lens. I use it every wedding along with my 85 S.

I don't know about all that other stuff you mentioned. I'm too busy working to think about that.

KR Photo said:

johnsonjj23 said:

LMAO - get off of the gear nerd bubble. Despite what the YouTube says, pros don’t actually care about obscure lens qualities, they choose a 35 because it’s a solid focal length for events AND the 35/1.8 S because it’s the only 35 Nikon has for mirrorless.

I can assure you, not a single actual pro photographer that I know is pixel peeping or talking about “fall-off” or other silly qualities. They want to know “will it work the way I expect? Will it last more than a few years? Is this what I need to pay the bills”

Amateurs (and nothing wrong with being amateur) think 90% gear and 10% making photos.

Pros think 90% making photos (get the next job) and 10% gear.

Click to expand...

Ha, "get off of the gear nerd bubble" -- for some reason that cracks me up. Probably because a lot of us here are here to talk endlessly (and probably uselessly) about gear.

I do like your statement about pros thinking 90% about making photos and 10% about gear. Although one responder to this thread did report that the wedding shooters he or she hires were holding out for a 1.4 or 1.2 version of the lens. I guess in the interim, they're not getting the shot.

Click to expand...

That strikes me as funny. Of course we're not simply 'not getting the shot,' that's too funny. We're just using zooms instead of primes to do so.

KR Photo said:

It seems odd to me to hold out, though, because one could use the 1.8 for a year or two and then still recoup quite a bit of the outlay for it -- and have been getting the shots at 35mm.

Click to expand...

Yeah, buying and selling and dealing with taxes re: depreciation schedules for doing so is simply not worth all that. We're in business, and that's a lot of wasted time.

Biggs23 said:

KR Photo said:

johnsonjj23 said:

LMAO - get off of the gear nerd bubble. Despite what the YouTube says, pros don’t actually care about obscure lens qualities, they choose a 35 because it’s a solid focal length for events AND the 35/1.8 S because it’s the only 35 Nikon has for mirrorless.

I can assure you, not a single actual pro photographer that I know is pixel peeping or talking about “fall-off” or other silly qualities. They want to know “will it work the way I expect? Will it last more than a few years? Is this what I need to pay the bills”

Amateurs (and nothing wrong with being amateur) think 90% gear and 10% making photos.

Pros think 90% making photos (get the next job) and 10% gear.

Click to expand...

Ha, "get off of the gear nerd bubble" -- for some reason that cracks me up. Probably because a lot of us here are here to talk endlessly (and probably uselessly) about gear.

I do like your statement about pros thinking 90% about making photos and 10% about gear. Although one responder to this thread did report that the wedding shooters he or she hires were holding out for a 1.4 or 1.2 version of the lens. I guess in the interim, they're not getting the shot.

Click to expand...

That strikes me as funny. Of course we're not simply 'not getting the shot,' that's too funny. We're just using zooms instead of primes to do so.

AcquiredTaste said:

It seems odd to me to hold out, though, because one could use the 1.8 for a year or two and then still recoup quite a bit of the outlay for it -- and have been getting the shots at 35mm.

Click to expand...

Yeah, buying and selling and dealing with taxes re: depreciation schedules for doing so is simply not worth all that. We're in business, and that's a lot of wasted time.

Click to expand...

That's great. Get back to work, and I hope your hired shooters enjoy the 1.4 or 1.2 when it arrives.

KR Photo said:

Biggs23 said:

Yeah, buying and selling and dealing with taxes re: depreciation schedules for doing so is simply not worth all that. We're in business, and that's a lot of wasted time.

Click to expand...

That's great. Get back to work, and I hope your hired shooters enjoy the 1.4 or 1.2 when it arrives.

Click to expand...

For some reason that comment comes off as really snarky, was it intended to be?

after reading the cameralabs review and seen the samples I'm wondering why my sigma 35 is so much better than these samples. maybe lens variation is a thing and all these reviews are not so helpful.

Biggs23 said:

KR Photo said:

Biggs23 said:

Yeah, buying and selling and dealing with taxes re: depreciation schedules for doing so is simply not worth all that. We're in business, and that's a lot of wasted time.

Click to expand...

That's great. Get back to work, and I hope your hired shooters enjoy the 1.4 or 1.2 when it arrives.

Click to expand...

For some reason that comment comes off as really snarky, was it intended to be?

Click to expand...

No, apologies if it sounded that way. I do get that some are waiting for the faster 35s, just as some are also waiting for the faster 85s. I'm no pro and am really happy with the 1.8s.

Lance B said:

I agree with your sentiments that the bokeh highlights can be nervous at times but I see that in a number of 35's like the Signa 35 f1.4 Art etc. Like you also say, the overall rendering of the Nikon 35 f1.8S is a league above the rest. I had both the Nikon 35 f1.4G and the Sigma 35 f1.4 Art but sold the Nikon after a long comparison period of having both. The Nikon had slightly nicer bokeh but the Sigma was sharper wide open and the results were a bit better from the Sigma in most instances. Once I got the Nikon 35 f1.8S, I sold the Sigma, the Nikon 35 f1.8S is nicer overall IMO. Sharper at f1.8 than the Sigma, nicer bokeh, less CA and just nicer rendering overall, IMO.

I like the 35mm focal length as it is basically what you see is what you get FOV.

Click to expand...

I went pretty much the same route as you on F mount, coming to the same conclusion, as I do occasionally need a 35mm as fast as possible, when I need to deal with a distracting background or low light. I dislike the Sigma intensely and the sketchy off centre AF is annoying on cameras with the D5 AF, but it is great wide open which you couldn't say for the Nikon. I also have the Tamron 35mm 1.8 that is good optically, smaller and has (some) VC which makes it useful for travelling.

In Z mount I have the 35 1.8 I wish it was smaller but it does the same job as the Tamron. I adapt the Sigma when 1.4 is useful, but I would add a native 1.2 in a heartbeat.

KR Photo said:

Biggs23 said:

KR Photo said:

Biggs23 said:

Yeah, buying and selling and dealing with taxes re: depreciation schedules for doing so is simply not worth all that. We're in business, and that's a lot of wasted time.

Click to expand...

That's great. Get back to work, and I hope your hired shooters enjoy the 1.4 or 1.2 when it arrives.

Click to expand...

For some reason that comment comes off as really snarky, was it intended to be?

Click to expand...

No, apologies if it sounded that way. I do get that some are waiting for the faster 35s, just as some are also waiting for the faster 85s. I'm no pro and am really happy with the 1.8s.

Click to expand...

Good deal.

I'm not a short prime guy myself, so I won't be a purchaser, but I definitely will once the 85 arrives!