The NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.4 tried and tested

Best use cases

Does this lens suit a type of genre? “It’s an excellent lens for what I photograph – a mixture of architecture and street, as it’s wide enough to capture houses or buildings,” Marcello says. “It’s perfect for environmental portraits – I use it for portraits of people standing near doors (or something similar) at a distance.”

Real world performance

Marcello is no stranger to walking around Berlin an hour before sunrise to capture his atmospheric streetscapes, which makes a lens to battle the low light crucial. “The autofocus is incredibly fast, even in low light,” he says. “I always capture people in pictures – backs of people, cars or bicycles. While testing out this lens, I noticed the autofocus was always on point – always where I needed it to be.”

Video performances

Switching from stills to video couldn’t be easier with the natural perspective of the NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.4. Before sunrise, Marcello wandered down to Berlin Cathedral (above left) to film the streetlamps against the darkness. He then headed to a crowded spot with commuters travelling to work and crouched down low half an hour after sunrise (above right) to take the image. “I really like the sun star created by the lens in this video,” he says. “Most of the time I use a filter to take away the star but, in this case, I really love it – it frames the video.”

The benefits of f/1.4 aperture

The ability to stop down to f/1.4 helps in low light and offers beautiful bokeh. “I love the bokeh created here (in the photo above right),” says Marcello. “It creates this soft and dreamy background, and the focus is right in the middle. This is taken in the afternoon in a moment of clouds before the sun, creating a softer look.”

Hot tips

Marcello dishes the tips to get the most out of the NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.4:

• “Zoom with your feet. This is a lens to walk about with, to get closer to or far away from your subject and think about your framing.”
• “Pick a subject, get close and put your aperture to f/1.4 to really test out the bokeh.”
• “Widen your aperture and lower your ISO. When capturing in low light in the early morning, I kept to a f/1.4 aperture and was able to lower my ISO to 500. If I was capturing the same scene (as above) with the NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S, it would need to be 2000 ISO (since f/1.4 is 4x more light than f/2.8).”

Final verdict

“Love the bokeh, the weight and the performance in low light!”

Want to master low light using the NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.4 next? Read here for Marcello’s guide.