Nikon Z 35mm f/1.2 S Review

Introduction

Ease of Use

The Z 35mm f/1.2 S Lens is one of Nikon’s larger lenses in the Z series, with its large size and weight being unsurprising considering the very wide maximum aperture of f/1.2.

It’s significantly larger than the much more compact Z 50mm f/1.8 S and Z 50mm F1.4 lenses – and probably not one you’d want to consider as an “everyday” or “walk around” lens, but more for specific shooting requirements or events, such as portraits, weddings and so on.

At 1060g / 2lb 5.4oz, it’s by no means lightweight, while the 150mm length and 90mm diameter certainly adds to the chunky feel.

That said, it still balances fairly well with the full-frame cameras in the Z series – we’ve been using it with the Z8.

Although it will fit on the Nikon Z APS-C models, the smaller size of those cameras would make it very front-heavy and generally unwieldy to use.

Compared to its main rival, the Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 Lab, the Z 35mm f/1.2 S is heavier by 90g and longer in length by 26.5mm, not to mention a lot more expensive.

Other alternatives include the much cheaper, smaller and lighter Nikon Z 35mm f/1.8 S (370g) and Nikon Z 35mm f/1.4 (415g) lenses.

Similarly to the other lenses in the f/1.2 trinity line-up, build construction is very high quality, with a metal lens mount.

To attach the lens to your camera, you first need to line up the white dot around the base of the lens to the white dot on the lens mount. 

Once you’ve done that, twist it to lock into place. When you want to release the lens, you need to push down the button at the side of the lens mount and twist in the opposite direction.

Like most Z mount lenses, the outward construction is fairly simple and straightforward. Towards the base you have the focal length and aperture written (35 / 1.2 S), while just next to it is a switch for moving between autofocus and manual focus. When working in autofocus, you can still manually override the focus if necessary.

A thin, ridged ring sits towards the base of the lens. This is a control ring which can be set to a few different functions via the main menu.

It will have a default option, for example adjusting aperture in aperture priority, but you can also assign it to exposure compensation or ISO sensitivity if you prefer. 

You can even set it to have no function whatsoever, which might be helpful if you were worried about accidentally knocking it and changing a setting.

At the centre of the lens, you have two customisable L-Fn buttons, one for horizontal use and one for vertical. This is a feature which is only found on Nikon’s more expensive, premium-end Z series lenses.

Unlike the control dial, the L-Fn button can be assigned to a far greater range of controls, including metering, switching on raw, zooming into the scene (to check for focus), playback and much more. Again, you can also have it set to “none” if you prefer.

Strangely, there’s no OLED display window on this lens, as found on the comparable 50mm f1.2 where it displays either the aperture or focusing distance.

A large ring in the centre of the lens is used for adjusting manual focus. This is ridged and has just enough give to make slight adjustments easy to do.

However, it doesn’t have hard stops at either end to help you ascertain when you’ve reached the maximum/minimum focusing limit.

f you are using manual focusing, there are some settings you can activate to make it easier. From the camera’s main menu, switching on focus peaking will help you ensure easier focus, while zooming into the scene can also ensure focusing is on point – which is especially important if you want to focus manually at very wide apertures such as f/1.2.

Focusing, if you choose to stick with autofocusing, is very quick, and very quiet, which makes it ideal for use in a wide range of situations where quiet focusing is advantageous – for example while shooting video, or in quiet places such as churches.

A petal-shaped lens hood is supplied in the box (HB-110), which you can attach to the front of the lens. To do this, you need to line up the white dot on the lens hood with the white dot at the front of the lens.

Simply then twist it to lock it into place – and do the reverse when you want to take it off. You can also turn the lens hood backwards for easier storage and transportation.

Focal Range

The 35mm focal length provides an angle of view of 63° on a 35mm full-frame camera.

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as blue or purple fringes along contrasty edges, were not readily apparent in our test shots, only appearing in very high contrast areas.

Vignetting

With the lens set to its maximum aperture of f/1.2, there is some obvious light fall-off in the corners, requiring you to stop down by at least 3 f-stops to completely prevent it.

JPEG

RAW

Distortion

There’s virtually no barrel distortion evident in either the RAW files or the JPG files, with near-identical results.

JPEG

RAW

Sunstars and Flare

The Nikon Z 35mm f/1.2 S is capable of producing nice sunstars when stopped-down to f/16, as shown below. Flare is well-controlled when shooting directly into the sun, even without the supplied lens hood fitted.

Macro

The Nikon Z 35mm f/1.2 S isn’t claimed to be a macro lens, but it does usefully offer a minimum focusing distance of 0.30cm / 0.99 ft with a maximum magnification of 0.2x. The following examples demonstrate how close you can get to your subject.

Bokeh

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc.

In the AF 35mm F1.2 Lab lens, Viltrox have employed an iris diaphragm with 11 circular blades, which has resulted in very appealing bokeh for a moderately wide-angle prime lens.

We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we’ve included several examples below for your perusal.

Sharpness

In order to show you how sharp the Nikon Z 35mm f/1.2 S lens is, we are providing 100% crops on the following page.