Gregg Heckler wrote:
If I was shooting weddings (which I do) I would want the 35 1.4g. Not just for the wonderful Bokeh, but for the extra light for focusing in dark churches/venues, the focus accuracy, color, contrast, and extra build quality.
For my taste, it is already a bit long in the tooth. It was tested and designed with a D300 and D3s in mind, with 12MP cameras, but now with a D810 or successors with even more MP it lacks the crispness I personally like to have, but that is of course subjective. It catches up to the sharpness the new 35/1.8G delivers wide open at f2.8 only. Bokeh is nice and probably its main selling point. AF is in my opinion on the slow side. You can still use it, but for snaps wide open this gets often difficult. Then there is strong vignetting (many reviews measured it above 2ev) and strong CAs. This is even visible in the smaller images posted here, where the bokeh balls are surrounded by a green line. For the money where I live I get the new Canon 35/1.4ii, which is the gold standard right now in my opinion doing almost everything right. Maybe Nikon is updating it in the future. What I would definitely call the 35G is that it is a "character lens", which renders quite unique. If this is what you are after, it is a fine lens and separates your work, until all other bought one, too ;-)
