Pixiq

As the sounds of the UPS truck faded up the road the packing tape on the box from Nikon was already open and the new Nikon 35mm f/1.4G lens attached to one of my test cameras (the Nikon D700). 

Since UPS drops off late in the afternoon I didn't have a chance to book a studio shoot for it, so the first images from the lens are of the available subjects (and my favorite ones), my son Henry, my wife and one of our cats. (And a cutting board thrown in for color rendition and depth of field.

I've been shooting for several months with the Sigma 50mm 1.4 as one of my primary lenses (and the only non-Nikon glass I'm using) because of the nice field-of-view and the wide-open aperture. 50mm is one of my favorite lengths but a nice 35mm is right behind it. For portrait work (which I do a lot) the 50mm is nicely tighter, but I'm happy getting closer to my subjects with a 35mm. 

I've never been fond of the current stock Nikkor 50mm, so the 35mm's announcement was very exciting to me. I wanted to see if this lens might become part of my permanent arsenal. 

It will. 

First impressions—the lens is fast to focus (although there's a bit of focus noise I'm not used to in Nikon glass) and locks on well. I'm very happy with the depth of field in these images (the first three shot from about six inches away) although it's certainly a different look than any other lens I've used. My comparison lens, one of my all-time-favorites is the Canon 85mm 1.2—glass against which all other lenses are judged. The canon 85mm as just slightly (to me) more pleasing focus blur, however at 85mm's I'm often father from my subject in the foreground, which changes the distance from them to the subject, relatively speaking so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. 

Next up will be getting this lens around some lights and a studio and checking out the light under studio conditions. (And if the weather improves, shooting a bit outside.)

But even in these first quick tests I can already tell that this lens is going to be a big part of my regular kit. 

Since the gallery here is not full size (and I'm guessing it's compressed on upload) I've added these photos to my flickr account as well. If you'd like to be able to download the full-size images to take a look at them, simply add me as a contact there to be able to download the originals.