Joint effort to describe the classic Ai-S 1.4/35mm

[Jakov Minić]

Frank, you've made beautiful portraits!
It's a great skill to make good shots like these with a wide angle!

[nikuy]

Frank

Its lovely walk around lens,well match my DF,I got it because on the list "best of the best",thanks Bjorn.

Lloyd

[Frank Fremerey]

Supershot the Flamingos!

A sculpture set in the park with a color distinct from
anything else in the frame. Are these really orange?

The one's I have seen so far were pink or rosé.

Thank you.

[Mikes]

Great love affair going on there, Frank.

This is a really interesting and diverse portfolio - thanks for putting it together. I especially like the B&W portraits - they are wonderful.

It was helpful to see the versatility of the lens when in good hands, and it has inspired me to take my 35/1.4 Ais out of mothballs and into the street.

I bought mine brand new and heavily discounted in Tokyo six years ago and have hardy used it since.

[Bill De Jager]

Love the portraits, Frank, especially #6 and #8.

[Tristin]

Frank, image 8 in the portraiture set is stellar.  The light, the framing with the man, plate and woman, the depth . . . all excellent!  I hope that image made it to print, it deserves it.  Can't say I like the lens' bokeh with busy backgrounds, but it really kills in my eyes with simple backgrounds

[charlie]

Great portraits, Frank. 

I often find 35mm either to wide or not wide enough of a focal length so I haven't used my peculiar 35mm AiS as much as I'd like.
I've been making an effort to change that and have been putting it to use on more shoots lately.

In the mean time here is a car portrait from a while back. Both taken at f/1.4

[Frank Fremerey]

I hear there are many incarnations of the 1.4/35 Nikkor and different
 versions
too. Chris Dees who sold me his replaced it with an older version.

Can someone elaborate on the history? Roland? Bjørn?

Thanks everybody for the nice words about my current work.

Find many more 1.4/35@1.4  in the Utrecht Thread and in the 366 days thread.

[Frank Fremerey]

Charlie: in the first shot you focussed on the front of the car.
Smooth. Classic. Why did you focus on the trees in shot two?
I like the "glowing car" yet it is quite unusual not to focus on the
 main subject.

[Erik Lund]

From the Mother-ship - Tale 27
http://www.nikkor.com/story/0027/

I have an old 'sales-book' from Nikon; Eyes of Nikon - The text on the Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 Ais ends something like;

Ideal for low light with or without flash, photo-journalism, sports, snapshots environmental portraits and nudes

 

Highly recommended book, can be found on e-Bay

Eyes of Nikon- A Comprehensive Guide to Nikkor and Nikon Series E Lenses

[Frank Fremerey]

Erik. This is a site I can lose myself in reading. As work is calling ... for the time being I recommend this link to Rolands site: http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/lenses.html#35

and click through to the incarnations description...

[Frank Fremerey]

here is a non-extreme indoor example. It clearly shows what you can expect at f=1.4 (soft, foggy, full of CA of any kind, "dreamy") or f=5.6 (clear as water, contrasty, few artifacts, "technical")

PS: These are 100% JPEG ooc ... right click | show picture to examine

[John Koerner]

[everybody who knows about this lens is invited to enter here and add!]

Dear Ai-S 1.4/35mm!

I send a love letter to you, you crazy horse of a lens!

I want to carry you with me every day and I do it most of the time, currently on a D600, hopefully soon on a D850 with the Sony A7R2 chip as its heart.

You are so tame and well behaved at f=4.0 and f=5.6 but you are wild and crazy at f=1.4. Uncorrected optical faults like spherical aberrations make your wide open bokeh wild and crazy, esp when repetitive, well lit forms appear in the background.

I first heared of you at naturfotograf.com, then I saw the wild rides Fons Baerken takes with you, dreamscapes of nature!

I lost you 10 years ago, found you again and now I guess my love will never end.

Yours sincerely

Frank

Some pictures from the last few weeks:

1) yellow flowers and Koblenzer Tor @f=1.4
2) Bergamot & Chillies @f=4.0
3) A shot to demonstrate the bokehbility @1.4
4) Well behaved action shot @f=4.0

Wonderful sequence and photos to display the affection.

I enjoyed all, and was impressed by many, the black and whites (as well as close portraits) especially.

The one I was awed by the most, however, was #3 in the first post "Bokehbility" ... looks like a real tree photographed with a "painted, surreal background" ... fantastic bullseye at defining what "painterly" means in a photograph.

Thanks for sharing,

Jack

[charlie]

Charlie: in the first shot you focussed on the front of the car.
Smooth. Classic. Why did you focus on the trees in shot two?
I like the "glowing car" yet it is quite unusual not to focus on the
 main subject.

Frank, that is a great question and one I am unable to answer.
I suspect I had every intention of focusing on the car and knowing how this lens behaves when focused in the mid to far range at f/1.4 figured the soft glowing effect was just the lens being its quirky self. Then I pretended like I knew what I was doing and posted the miss-focused image on the internet and got called out on it 

I did manage get better focus in another image though, again at f/1.4 though with a little less glow. 

[simato73]

Snowdrops at f/2.

Saturation and contrast have been increased in post-processing.
Otherwise the image would have similar characteristics to the crucifix at f/1.4 shown by Frank (although less extreme since the aperture used here is f/2)
By the way that was a great example illustrating how this lens works in terms of contrast.
In my case I wanted to give another example of how peculiar OOF zones are rendered.