Yesterday I bought my first lens in 5 years. I had contemplated purchasing the 50mm F1.8 Nikkor AF-D lens. At around three hundred and sixty ringgit, it is value for money and it’s optics highly rated. But I already have a 50mm F1.8 manual Nikkor lens which I purchased even before I bought a camera body! If you wish to see how this humble lens performs, my friend Tzy Wen has very recently come into possession of one and reviewed it in his blog here. So I decided to get myself something else. At first I considered the 20mm F2.8 Nikkor AF-D but I soon found out that wide angled full frame lenses suffer from light falloff when used on digital cameras using DX sized sensors. After much (but not enough) research I decided to buy a 2nd hand Nikkor 35mm F2 Auto Focus lens. Why not enough research? Well, I could and should have bought the 35mm F2 AF-D instead for a hundred and fifty ringgit more. I must admit that I seldom buy stuff for myself and when I do decide to spend I sometimes make hasty decisions. In fact so hasty that I fail even to consider the facts I have researched! I hope I will not regret this purchase. Only time will tell. Ok, enough about me and on to my purchase.
As the name suggest the 35mm F2 Nikkor AF will autofocus on any Nikon camera capable of auto focus with the exception of the D40, D40x and the recent D60. These few cameras will only autofocus when paired with Nikkor lenses that have a built in motor such as those carrying the suffix AF-S.
The 35mm F2 Nikkor
F2!
These are the first few pictures of the lens. I won’t really review this lens as Tzy Wen did for his new 50mm F1.8. In the days ahead, I hope to familiarise myself with this lens.
Keyboard
- DOF on fire
What impresses me is it’s depth of field or lack of it at F2. In the picture of my computer keyboard above, the focus was on the “T” key. The only other keys that were in focus were “V” and “G” which on the same plane as “T”.
Don’t worry Tzy Wen, I shall let you get your hands on it if I can have the use of your 50mm F1.8! Hahaha! I am hoping we will have lots of fun with these 2 lenses.
Virtualmystic 
actually the 35mm is a more suitable lens for the dx format since after the crop factor it goes nicely to 52.5mm. The 50mm will be 75mm on the dx. anyhows, I’d love to give it a try. If you use my 50mm f1.8, you might be tempted to buy it hahha!
wow, new lense!! I like your fire engine picture. Quite sharp, but it is a little bit under-exposed. Lolz :)