All of Nikon’s Z-mount F1.2 S lenses are extreme instruments. They are big, heavy, and expensive…not for the faint of heart. But if you’re interested in premium performance (and you have a strong back), they are delivering uniquely amazing results. Nikon’s newest is the Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S lens, and it sits near the top of the categories of biggest, heaviest, and most expensive of the many 35mm lenses I’ve tested. Is the 35mm F1.2 S worth the big bucks? As with all of these premium fast aperture S-line lenses, the answer is “it depends”. For many photographers they are overkill, but but for some (particularly those who earn a living with their cameras), they may just be some of the best investments you can make. We’ll explore all those details in either the video review below or in this text review.

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Thanks to Chris at Nikon Canada for sending me a review loaner of this lens.   As always, this is a completely independent review.  All opinions and conclusions are my own. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Nikon Z8, which I reviewed here. You can find the product listing page for the Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S here.

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Nikkor Premium Fast Aperture Comparison

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AI Summary:
The Nikon Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is a high-end, large, and heavy lens tailored for professional photographers seeking top-tier performance. It delivers exceptional sharpness, beautiful bokeh, and excellent flare resistance across various lighting conditions. Its rugged build and weather sealing make it suitable for demanding environments, though its size and weight may be less practical for extended use. Overall, it offers outstanding optical quality, making it a valuable tool for portrait, wedding, and astrophotography, but it may be overkill for casual shooters.

Strengths:

• Exceptional image sharpness and detail, even at F1.2
• Beautiful, smooth bokeh and pleasing background blur
• Excellent flare and ghosting resistance with advanced coatings
• Robust build quality with weather sealing for outdoor use

Weaknesses:

• Very large, heavy, and less portable for prolonged use
• Limited feature set and somewhat awkward control placement
• Higher price point that may not appeal to all photographers
• Autofocus not as fast or precise as some rivals for fast action

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I love fast 35mm lenses. The truth of the matter is that once you get to a focal length like 85mm or longer, even F2.8 provides a really shallow depth of field in many situations. But 35mm lenses are a different story. Depth of field is much bigger at 35mm, and it takes a fast aperture to really create a shallow depth of field. Having access to that fast aperture allows one to be much more creative with framing and depth of field.

The primary audience for this lens is pretty obvious from Nikon’s marketing – they are going after wedding and portrait photographers. It’s a little hard to summon weddings on demand, so that won’t be featured in this review, but I will try to recreate a few of the wedding detail type images that this crowd will be looking for. Here’s one using Nikon’s “Red” color profile.

The 35mm F1.2 S is excellent at F4 and F5.6, but so are a lot of smaller, lighter, and cheaper lenses, so a lot of the images I share will be at very large apertures.

This is an extreme instrument – is it worth buying? Let’s dive in.

Nikkor 35mm F1.2 S Build and Handling

Nikon’s lineup of Z-mount premium lenses – the S-Line lenses – is known for many things, but being small is not one of them. Nikon has taken the old Zeiss Otus philosophy where performance is by the greatest object and size and weight are not really significant considerations. I think they can get away with it, too, when they often have a Small | Medium | Large option at that given focal length. It’s true now of a 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, where F1.8, F1.4, and F1.2 options all exist or surely will in the near future. (though ironically the F1.4 options are often the smallest!). I thought Nikon was brilliant for giving the 135mm F1.8 Plena (which I reviewed here) a name (Plena). I think every lens this big, expensive, and high performing should have a name. Come on, Nikon, couldn’t this 35mm F1.2 been the “Athena” or something?

*My test loaner comes through Nikon Canada’s Professional Services, so there is some additional stickers on it that aren’t “stock”.

This is a BIG lens. That is the first thing that you notice about it. It is 90mm (3.5″) in diameter and a whopping 150mm (5.9″) in length. It weighs 1060g (2.3lb). That makes it very similar in size and weight to a fast zoom lens like the Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8! While the Viltrox LAB 35mm F1.2 hasn’t made it to Z-mount yet (I anticipate that arrival sometime in the summer of 2025, however), the 35mm F1.2 S is much larger and heavier than the E-mount version of that lens.

Wow!

You will feel that weight. I made a journal entry on my phone that after a half hour of hiking carrying the 35mm F1.2 S on my Z8 using a Peak Design Slide Lite strap (my strap of choice!) in a cross-body position my traps were burning. I switched sides a few times (which I normally) wouldn’t do on that length of hike. A wider Slide strap might work better, or finding some other carrying solution that will help mitigate the weight. I’ve shot a lot of weddings in the past when I was doing them more, and I think I’d find this lens a little much over a ten hour shooting day…but maybe I’m just a wimp.

What makes this a big, heavy lens is that there is a massive amount of glass inside right past those 82mm front filter threads.

The 35mm F1.2 S is a premium lens with an excellent build. It has a tough outer shell of metal alloys and engineered plastics, and a thorough degree of weather sealing.

There is a protective coating on the front and rear elements and then roughly 11 (by my count) internal seals at the rings, buttons, and switches. That allows you to have confidence when shooting in the elements.

I’m a little underwhelmed by the feature set of Nikon’s premium lenses. The feature set is essentially the customizable control ring, an AF | MF switch, and two redundant Function (Custom) buttons. These buttons don’t have separate functions but a shared, single function that is programmable from within the camera. There are two to allow one to be close to hand whether shooting in horizontal or vertical modes.

At least this design has a specific purpose (more on that in the image quality section).

Nikon has a specific design ethos of the feature set of these upscale S-Line lenses, which includes a few more control points than the average lens. That starts very early on the lens with an AF | MF switch that is located very close to the lens mount.

I’ve complained about this placement on a number of lenses. On my Z8, there are two controls located way too close to this area. There is a flash sync port behind a rubber cover along with the camera release button. That means if I’m reaching around with my left thumb to operate the switch, I’m having to thread the needle through a couple of obstacles. Perhaps placing it on the same tier with the Fn buttons would have made more sense.

Next comes Nikon’s clickless “customizable control ring”, which could serve as a manual aperture ring but could also function to control ISO, exposure compensation, or a few other functions – whatever you’ve set up the ring to do in the menus. Those controls can be found in the Custom Settings menu, then by selecting group F (Controls), and finally choosing custom setting F2 (Custom Controls Shooting) to change the function of the ring.

As an aside, I will note that I was able to do smooth aperture racks through the control ring without any visible steps. I like it fine for that purpose for video, but didn’t like this application of it for much else. The ring is way too sensitive and the rotational throw too short to be very useful. You’ll rack through most of the aperture in a small twist, and if I set it to exposure compensation or something similar, I’m at +/-4 EV before I know it. I’ve given Viltrox some grief over their own version of the customizable control ring, but I’d take it over the Nikkor any day of the week. What’s more, the LAB lens has the OLED that we’ve seen on some S Line lenses but for some reason not on this one.

There’s no click/declick option, and the ring would actually be more useful with clicks in stills mode because you could more easily use with precision for aperture control. The absence of the OLED also makes the control ring less useful because its not directly connected to any display but on the camera. A lens like the Viltrox also allows you to program A-B focus for smart focus pulls.

Put simply, I’m not particularly impressed by the implementation of the limited features we have here. A $2800 USD lens deserves better.

The aperture iris has eleven rounded blades, and the aperture iris definitely does a nice job of keeping the specular highlights round. Here’s a look at F1.2, F2, and and F2.8:

Here’s what that aperture iris looks like from the inside.

I’m not sure what dictates whether the front or back of the aperture blades are facing out. The Plena was the opposite of this, with the back of the blades showing. I much prefer the look of the 35mm F1.2 S, which gives you a nice “James Bond” type view.

The manual focus ring is slightly raised and has a rubberized, ribbed texture.  It moves very smoothly and has a nice amount of weight to it. I was able to pull off really smooth manual focus pulls and focus with very nice precision. I also love the fact that I can do full time manual overrides even when in AF-C mode.

You’ll note that there is a third rubberized section near the front of the lens that looks like another ring but is actually just a section with extra grip for either aesthetic purposes or to provide a section to grab when mounting/unmounting the lens.

There is no lens based stabilization, so you will need to rely upon the in-camera stabilization if your camera is so equipped.

The lens hood is petal-shaped and does have a small lock on the right side. It is made of plastics and feels fairly ordinary. Unlike the Viltrox, it doesn’t have a rubberized front edge. I do feel like these premium lenses deserve slightly nicer hoods.

Minimum focus distance is 30cm, giving a maximum magnification figure of 1:5, or 0.20x. The LAB 35mm F1.2 can only focus as closely as 34cm and delivers a lower 0.17x magnification. Score on for the big Nikon! Here’s what that looks like.

Close focus contrast and detail are good, though stopping down a bit will add more contrast. Here’s an F1.2 shot.

There is no VR (vibration reduction, or optical stabilization) built into the lens. That’s not a problem on a body like my Z8, which has good camera based stabilization, but could be a problem for those of you shooting on a camera without VR.

This is a big, heavy, expensive lens, but it is also beautifully made and is a nice match for a beefier camera like my Z8. I’ve been a bit critical in this section, as when a lens is priced this highly ($2800!), it comes with a set of expectations. I feel somewhat underwhelmed not only in the feature set but the implementation of some things like the customizable control ring and the position of the AF | MF switch. Maybe you don’t care about the features and just care about the performance, and if so, great! For me as a reviewer, however, I try to be even handed in handing out praise where deserved but also critiques where I feel they are warranted.

35mm F1.2 S Autofocus Performance for Stills

Nikon still uses STM focus motors in their premium lenses, which I also find a bit surprising (at least on other platforms. I tend to associate Linear or VCM style motors with the more premium lenses on other brands, but in all fairness, Nikon’s dual STM focus motors are getting the job done here. It’s not as fast as a lens like the 35mm F1.8 S (my review here), but its fast enough that I didn’t really notice focus during use.

I’ll be curious to see how the LAB 35mm F1.2 performs on Z-mount when it comes, as it has a more sophisticated QUAD HyperVCM focus system. On paper, the LAB 135mm F1.8 had a better focus system than the Plena, too, but when using the lenses side by side I would take the Plena every time for focus. Perhaps that will prove true here, too, but at least on Sony I found the LAB 35mm F1.2 to be exemplary.

That being said, I saw a few signs that suggest to me that the 35mm F1.2 S isn’t quite going to match the Plena’s focus performance. Focus pulls are a little slower. Still relatively fast, but you can see focus taking place rather than an instantaneous racking back and forth. There’s also a bit of focus noise, though it is just a light “schnick” sound as focus racks and forth. Outdoor focus seems to happen a little quicker than my indoor tests.

With some lenses I’ve been able to grab focus on bees flying in and out of the hive, but I took nearly one hundred shots in half a dozen bursts and didn’t have a lot of success in grabbing them in the air.

That’s a huge challenge, obviously. I was able to successfully track Nala as she moved towards the camera, with each frame well focused. She wasn’t moving fast, but she was moving steadily, so nailing every frame at F1.2 gives me great confidence that I would have no problem tracking a bride moving down an aisle, for example.

Shooting shallow depth of field shots was no problem.

I also had no problem focusing up close on a ring on a finger, which is one of the key shots where a lens like this might be used in a wedding or engagement shoot.

So autofocus for stills was generally good. There have been relatively few autofocusing 35mm F1.2 lenses to compare to at this point, and the only ones I’ve done in the past five years have been on Sony. I’m not sure this lens is sports ready, but I do think AF will handle anything you might encounter in a portrait or wedding shoot.

Autofocus (Video)

Video autofocus is a little more of a mixed bag. On a positive note, focus breathing is nearly nonexistent. There’s only a tiny amount of shift in the size of objects whether in or out of focus.

Nikon’s cameras (at the moment) handle video AF in two different ways. Touch to focus (selecting a focus point on the screen) happens independent of any finetuning you might do through the camera’s settings. You can slow down or speed up focus speed and tweak the reactiveness to subject changes for normal tracking, but the touch to focus settings override those settings. That often means that touch to focus isn’t great.

In this case the speed of changes is very fast, but there is also a tendency to do some micro-pulsing or an occasional fast rack in the wrong direction. This is pretty standard fare on Nikon with the current state of play, unfortunately.

But things are much better when I move to a situation where my dialed in settings for focus rules apply. My hand test, for example, went well, with good transitions from my hand to my face and back.

Likewise normal focus pulls when you move the camera from one subject to another are better damped and controlled – more cinematic.

I had no problems with static settings either. Focus does a good job of staying locked on a subject on camera without hunting or pulsing.

Video AF still isn’t quite as sophisticated on Nikon as Sony or Canon, generally, and the 35mm F1.2 S proved to be about average in performance.

Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S Image Quality Breakdown

Here’s where this lens needs to shine. Large aperture lenses are actually often at a disadvantage when it comes to autofocus because they have much larger glass elements to move, and they are almost always at a disadvantage when it comes to size, weight, and cost. This is a big, heavy, expensive lens, but that is in the service of exceptional performance. The 35mm F1.2 S needs to deliver. This is an optical design of 17 elements in 15 groups, which includes three ED elements, three aspherical elements, and one aspherical ED element.

The MTF chart looks good at F1.2, but not exceptionally good. It doesn’t look as good as the Viltrox LAB 35mm F1.2 on paper.

I’ll revisit that comparison once the Z-mount version of the LAB comes out to verify results.

At the moment, however, the 35mm F1.2 S is the only such lens available on Nikon Z mount, and while Viltrox does have an adapter that I’m assuming works fine with their lenses, the LAB does NOT work via my Megadap adapter.

Let’s move on to the actual performance. The Plena was designed to provide very even illumination to the whole frame, including the periphery, but that’s not nearly as true here.

Distortion is well controlled, with just a tiny amount of very linear barrel distortion, that can easily go without correction and corrects easily if you decide to correct it. Vignette is another matter, however, and is very heavy. I needed to use a +77 to correct the vignette. That being said, I needed to use a +70 to correct vignette on the E-mount version of the LAB, which means that the larger Z-mount opening (which always requires more vignette correction) will mean that the Z-mount version of the LAB will almost certainly be worse and will require maxing out the sliders to correct the vignette.

The correction profile in camera or editing software works great, though, and so this isn’t a real world problem. Here’s an F1.2 image with an even foreground, and you can see that no vignette lingers.

There are minimal amounts of LoCA (longitudinal chromatic aberrations) before and after the plane of focus.

I like to use my Dad’s old SLR as a real world test, and I saw only a tiny amount of green fringing in a few spots.

No problems there.

LaCA (lateral chromatic aberrations) typically show up along the edges of the frame with high contrast transition points.  I saw nothing but clean transitions on either side of the black and white transitions.

Outside of the vignette, that’s a great start to our optical examination.

We’ll move on to inspecting our test chart.  This test has been done on a 45MP Nikon Z8 sensor.  I use a high end tripod and two second camera delay to ensure vibration doesn’t affect images.  Here’s a look at the test chart that we will examine at high magnification:

If we take a look at crops (at 200%) at F1.2 from the center, mid-frame, and lower right corner, we find that center and mid-frame performance is exceptionally good, and that the corners, while dark, are good until the last little bit.

Out in the real world this equals to pin sharp results with great contrast. This Crimson King maple leaf at F1.2 shows beautiful detail and contrast.

The crop shows that the edges of subjects are nice and crisp without the “bleeding” at the edges I sometimes see with cheaper lenses.

Stopping down even to F1.4 provides a surprising amount of additional contrast in the center and the mid-frame.

The corners don’t see quite that same bump, though there are a little brighter and show a bit more contrast.

Stop on down to F2.8, however, and you’ll find the corners just as pin sharp as everywhere else. It is a rare lens that achieves this level of corner performance at any aperture.

Stopped down a bit, and this is a killer landscape lens with exceptional detail from corner to corner.

But the joy of a lens like this is shooting at F1.2, where it delivers the kind of performance that few if any 35mm F1.2 lenses have ever delivered.

You almost have to zoom into images to appreciate what’s being done at F1.2. This image looks nice…

…but it is only when viewed at high magnification that you can appreciate how those fine details are being rendered.

Physics will affect even the mightiest of lenses, however, so expect diffraction to start to soften the image by F11 and more obviously by F16, which is minimum aperture (though this lens is still sharper than many lenses at its weakest!)

I’m not sure that buying the 35mm F1.2 S just on the strength of sharpness is worth doing, however, as the 35mm F1.8 S is very sharp as well. The bigger reason to buy this lens is its ability to give you that wide(ish) angle of view while having beautifully soft bokeh. This image, for example, looks pretty exemplary.

You can even create bokeh out of mosquitoes!

You can make backgrounds beautifully disappear.

It also handles shiny situations well, allowing you to get those stylish wedding detail type shots with a lot of big, round specular highlights.

People photos show a nice cutout effect and dimensionality.

I also found that flare resistance in many situations was good. When the sun is barely in (or right out of) frame at bright apertures, all you can is a nice glow without anything destructive.

More direct shots into the sun at any aperture seem to hold up well. There are three different kinds of coatings employed here, including Meso Amorphous Coat, Nano Crystal Coat, and Super Integrated Coating. These are clearly doing an exceptional job here.

There is both good and bad when it comes to astro performance. The heavy vignette does negatively impact images a bit at F1.2. Star points are nice and crisp, however, without much evidence of fringing, though you will see some coma towards the edge where stars look more like birds flying out of frame.

I tried stopping down to F1.6, but I didn’t see much of an improvement by that point.

Overall, however, I would say that performance for the night sky is good because of being able to suck so much light in at F1.2 while also having good sharpness and low fringing.

You pay the big bucks to get something exceptional, and that’s what this lens is optically.

The Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is priced like one of the best 35mm lenses ever, and that’s exactly what it is. If you’d like to see more images, check out the gallery linked here.

Conclusion

The idea of a 35mm lens that is this big, this heavy, and this expensive is going to seem absurd to the average photographer. The Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is an extreme instrument in every way, but fortunately that includes the performance of the lens.

Those who routinely do wedding and portrait work will often want the best tools possible for their work, as it allows them more flexibility to play with depth of field and to create high end images that will delight their customers. Lenses like the 35mm F1.2 S will allow people to do that.

This is not a practical lens. If you want practical, consider the 35mm F1.8 S or even the 35mm F1.4 instead. But if your goal is to have the best 35mm prime lens you can get on Z-mount, this is it. The Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S is not a flawless lens, but it is an exceptional one. Just be sure to start hitting the gym.

Pros:

• Beautiful built lens
• Very good weather sealing
• Good up close performance and magnification
• Aperture racking and manual focus work well
• STM focus motors work quickly
• Low distortion
• Exceptional control of fringing
• Extremely sharp
• Amazing contrast
• Gorgeous bokeh
• Great flare resistance
• Nice three dimensional rendering

Cons:

• Big and heavy
• Don’t love the control ring integration
• The AF | MF switch’s position is not convenient when mounted on my Z8
• Video AF can be a little rough
• Some strong focus breathing
• Lens hood doesn’t feel premium

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GEAR USED:

Purchase the Nikkor Z 35mm F1.2 S @ B&H Photo https://tinyurl.com/1235bhphoto | Adorama https://howl.link/m4llecjbw5qxl | Amazon https://tinyurl.com/1235Samazon | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/4wxfa | Amazon Canada https://tinyurl.com/1235Samazcan | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/3G2VI9c | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3I4pnzh

Purchase the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena @ The Camera Store | B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Viltrox AF 135mm F1.8 LAB @ Viltrox (use code DUSTINABBOTT for 5% off) | B&H | Adorama | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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Purchase the Nikon Z8 @ B&H Photo | Adorama | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

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