Nikon 50mm f/1.4G AF-S Nikkor Lens

Nikon is a very well known brand in photo industry for it's high quality Digital SLR cameras to both amateur and professional photographers. Nikon is popular among many photographers not only because of it's well designed camera body but also wide variety of lenses it offers. Nikon is probably the best brand to use wide variety of the lenses for the older body as well as the newly designed body. They offer wide angle lens, telephoto lens, macro lens, prime lens and few other types to reach out the varieties of users all over the world. I will continue to write about their other types of lenses in the future but today lets talk about the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G lens. Among many other prime lenses Nikon offers, Nikon 50mm f/1.4G is one of the best prime lens and the favorite of many photographers. It is very well designed and built from the high quality materials. It got the metal lens mount and the high quality plastic to protect the internal lens glasses. It has a smooth rubber ring with a very nice grip for the manual focus.

It works perfectly on both FX format and DX format DSLR cameras. This lens has an Autofocus (AF-S) feature which works brilliantly on Nikon's entry level DSLRs like D40, D40x and D60 as well as high end professional camera like D3 or D3X. It is built with an Exclusive Nikon Silent Wave Motor (SWM) which enables fast, accurate, and quiet Autofocus. This prime lens is perfect for the low-light conditions because of it's wide open aperture. Nikon’s Super Integrated Coating (SIC) on the glass enhances the light transmission efficiency, offers superior color consistency and also reduces the flare. Nikon 50mm f/1.4G is the ideal lens for travel, event, environmental and general photography in a wide variety of conditions, with superb optical formula and an ultra-fast f/1.4 maximum aperture. It is an ideal portrait lens when used on a Nikon DX-format digital SLR, approximating the angle of view similar to that of a 75mm lens on a Nikon FX-format digital SLR. This lens can focus close up to 1.5 feet and can also be used to produce nice bokeh as well.

Despite of being very fast and high quality lens, it doesn't offer few common features that you might be looking for. If you are used to with the zoom lenses and composing the shots sitting in one position, this lens might disappoint you. Since, this lens doesn’t have a zoom feature, you might need to move front and back time to time to adjust the frame and compose your photograph. It's focal length is fixed and that's why it is called the prime lens as well. And also, this lens doesn't have an aperture ring (denoted by G letter) and will not work on manual focus camera where you need to set the aperture from the lens barrel. This lens doesn't have a Vibration Reduction (VR) feature which may be useful for taking handheld shots in a low light condition, specially, if the subject is moving or the photographer is not using a tripod. As of writing this blog, it was priced at $434.95 on amazon which could attract some of the buyers as well.

It may be an expensive piece of glass but when compared to the other wide-angle lenses or the zoom lenses, the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G lens might be the most affordable and yet more versatile lens. It's build quality and the small size also makes it an ideal lens for the travel.

Alphabets Printed On The Nikon Lenses And Their Meanings

If you look at the lens from any manufacturer, you will notice some numerical and alphabetical prints on it. They are printed there to let the buyers know about the feature and the quality of the lens. Sometimes it might be confusing to understand the meaning of those numbers and symbols and decide about the type of the lens you are trying to get based on that information. When I bought my first lens a couple of years ago, I went through the same confusion. And that is why I am trying to make a note of some of the abbreviations that Nikon uses on it's lenses so that you can make a informed decision about the Nikon lenses. Without wasting much time, let's take a look at them one by one and see what does it really mean for us as a lens buyer.

AF - AF stands for Autofocus but the lens does not come with it’s own motor for auto-focusing. The lens can auto focus only when it is coupled with the camera body which comes with the autofocus motor inside the camera body.

AF-S - AF-S stands for Autofocus with a silent-wave autofocus motor built inside the lens. By using this type of lens, you can achieve autofocus whether the camera body comes with it’s own focusing motor or not.

If you want to know more about an AF lens and an AF-S lens and how does it work with different types of camera body, please check out my blog - Autofocus Is Not Working On My Nikon D5100.

DX - It means the lens was primarily built for those Digital SLRs which utilize a smaller sensor or cropped sensor and known as DX format or APS-C sensor format body. Technically, you can use a DX lens on both DX format camera and FX format camera, but you may end up getting a circular image in the middle of the black frame if you are using a DX lens on a FX camera body. This is because FX type camera has a bigger sensor and the image produce by a DX lens can’t fill in the full sensor area.

Nikon Lens

D - It means the Lens equipped with a "chip" which allows the camera body to assess the distance of the subject being photographed and expose for that subject correctly.

DC - DC stands for Defocus Control. A lens is designed primarily for portraiture that allows you to selectively defocus the image.

ED - ED stands for Extra-Low Dispersion Glass. It is basically a glass coating that doesn't disperse light as it enters the lens as other normal glass does and obtain optimum correction of chromatic aberrations.

G - It means the lens’ aperture is electronically controlled and does not have an aperture ring on it. Some of the Nikkor lenses will have an aperture ring allowing physical, manual aperture control which is designed for the older bodies.

IF - IF stands for Internal Focusing which means it doesn't change its length of the lens as you focus it. CPU built inside the lens controls focus in the lens itself. Lens will not expand or shrink when you focus subjects and it's front element doesn't move either.

Micro - Nikon's proprietary trade name for a macro lens. "Micro" and "macro" mean the same thing for Nikon lens.

N - Nano crystal coating. A high-tech coating used on lenses to reduce ghosting and flare. In the early days, Nikon used letters like P (penta, 5 elements), N (nano, 9 elements) to indicate how many elements a lens had. Now Nikon reused a letter N to indicate nano crystal coating.

VR - VR stands for Vibration Reduction. It is an image stabilizer technology introduced by the Nikon allowing a photographer to reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or its subject specially when they are not using tripods. It actually allows photographers to shoot with 2-4 stops slower shutter speed than without VR lens and still produce sharper image.

Ø - Filter diameter that correctly fits into the lens. Common filter diameters are 49mm, 52mm, 58mm, 62mm, 67mm and 72mm.

If you see something like f/3.5-5.6 numbers printed on your lens, that means your lens maximum aperture is f/3.5 when it's fully zoomed out (at the lowest focal range) and f/5.6 when it's fully zoomed in (at the highest focal range).

I hope this explanation helps you to understand some of the nomenclature Nikon uses on their lenses and assist you to decide which lens you should buy or what to look for when you are shopping for your next lens.

Happy shooting!

Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S Lens Review

Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S is designed and built for Nikon DX-Format digital SLR camera. This lens is built with Nikon Super Integrated Coating (SIC) to enhance the light transmission efficiency and offers superior color consistency. Nikon built this lens with an exclusive Nikon Silent Wave Motor (SWM) which enables it for fast, accurate and quiet Autofocus on Nikon's entry-level DSLR camera like D40, D40x, D60 and D5000 which lacks the internal motor to use lens in Autofocus mode. One of the key element to get this lens is the price of the lens. It comes with less than half the price of many other DX format standard prime lenses currently in the market. At the time of writing this blog, it was selling on Amazon for $197.04. If you really want to try the lens but you don’t want to spend that much money, there are places from where you can rent the lens.

Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S Prime Lens

Along with all the promising features, the lens's performance is very impressive compared to it's price. It produces really sharp and finely detailed images in al aperture value. It focuses very quickly and accurately. It is very light weight and fits into a small package. If you are traveling a lot with your camera, this lens will be a huge advantage for you to carry around. It is almost 4 times cheaper than Nikon AF-S 18-200mm F3.5-5.6 DX VR II lens but produces much sharper images with close focusing up to 1 foot. It is very fast and f/1.8 aperture is perfect for the low-light condition.

The AF-S Nikkor 35mm F/1.8G has two focus modes, M/A (manual override Autofocus) and M (manual focus). The M/A mode enables instant manual switching during AF operation. The lens also features a rubber seal to minimize the moisture ingression around the mount and accepts 52mm filter attachments.