I bought this lens because I wanted a 'fast' prime lens. The requirements were that the lens had a good quality housing and had to take sharp pictures. The lens was also not allowed to cost too much due to a limited budget. After looking at different lenses, I opted for the Nikon 35mm F1.8G. Due to the DX format sensor of my D90, this 35mm lens corresponds to a 52mm lens on an FX body.
I've been using this lens for three days now and I really like it. When you hold the lens in your hand, it feels good. At the back of the lens, the choice was made to make the mount from metal instead of plastic. The rubber sealing ring ensures that less dust can get into the camera. I personally never use the supplied cloth holder for the lens, but it can be useful when the lens is not being transported in a camera bag.
The lens focuses quickly, even in low-light situations. If the lens itself cannot find a point to focus, you can do this manually by either setting the lens to the M position or by setting the position to M on the camera body. (This is only possible when the camera has an AF motor built in). The focus ring feels a bit stiff and has a range of about 100 degrees. The ring is wide enough to prevent you from bumping the hood so that people with larger hands can also use this small lens.
The supplied lens hood is not very large, so there is not much effect on preventing flaring. Due to the small size, there is also no protection against bumping the lens against walls, tables, etc. For both reasons, it is recommended to use a UV filter. In order to prevent loss of quality, you often choose either the B+W MRC filters or the Carl Zeiss filters.
The quality of the photos taken with this lens is high, even when shooting at F1.8. At F1.8 there is minimal loss of sharpness, but hardly noticeable. At F2.8, the photos are very sharp overall. At F1.8 there is also discoloration in high contrast photos. However, this disappears from F2.2 and above and is completely gone from F2.8.
My conclusion: a good bright lens that delivers excellent quality for its price. There is no better lens in the price range. The photos below show the difference between F1.8 on the 35mm and F4.5 on the 18-105 kit lens set at 35mm. Also two photos to show the difference in depth effect.
