# 18-55mm vs 1.8 35mm



## Onera

Hey guys,

I was just wondering if I should get the 1.8 35mm, and leave the 18-55 only when I need the 18mm.

So my question is. Is it a lot better than the kit lenses? I know it's prime lens, so there should be decent difference?

If there's someone more knowledgeable. If you rate 18-55 over sharpness and dof, from 0 to 10, how much you would rate the 35mm 1.8 on those to from 0 to 10... =)

Also off topic. Which one is better for night sky, star shots? =)

Best regards!


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## Rafterman

The kit lens is sharper than a lot of people give it credit for. That being said, the 35mm is ridiculously sharp. The larger maximum aperture of the 35 is also going to get you a narrower DoF than the kit lens. The bokeh isn't blow-you-away spectacular, but it's nice for a $200 lens. You could use either one for night sky shots, but if you want a wider view, you'll have to obviously put on the kit lens.

Before I got my 50mm 1.8D, I had the 35 1.8G myself. I rarely carried the 18-55, and left the 35 on my camera as a walk-around lens most of the time.


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## bhop

IMO, the two lenses are too different to compare, unless you only use your 18-55 in the 35mm setting all the time..   The whole point of a zoom is to be able to zoom.

That said, I'd personally prefer the 35mm.  It's a nicer lens and I like having just one focal length.


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## manicmike

The 35 is a brilliant lens. Especially for the price.


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## Onera

Thanks for the replies guys, it gave me the idea that I need the lens for sure, no matter what.


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## CaptainNapalm

I bought the 35mm f/1.8 lens a month ago and am not impressed with it one bit.  I much prefer the 18-55mm kit lens as it produces more consistent photos.  The 35mm does perform better in low light if you're prepared to shoot subjects that are close and you only need a very shallow depth of field, if you want to capture a larger scene you need to step up a few stops and it's as good a performer as your kit lens.  I took hundreds of shots with the 35mm prime and for every 10 I take more than half turn out blurry and unusable.  I know my hand is steady and it's not camera shake.  However, this is just my opinion on it, and I know everyone will disagree with me but that's my two cents.  I actually suspect I might have a bad copy but who knows.  Good luck with yours though.


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## Rafterman

CaptainNapalm said:


> I bought the 35mm f/1.8 lens a month ago and am not impressed with it one bit.  I much prefer the 18-55mm kit lens as it produces more consistent photos.  The 35mm does perform better in low light if you're prepared to shoot subjects that are close and you only need a very shallow depth of field, if you want to capture a larger scene you need to step up a few stops and it's as good a performer as your kit lens.  I took hundreds of shots with the 35mm prime and for every 10 I take more than half turn out blurry and unusable.  I know my hand is steady and it's not camera shake.  However, this is just my opinion on it, and I know everyone will disagree with me but that's my two cents.  I actually suspect I might have a bad copy but who knows.  Good luck with yours though.



I've seen you make a similar post to this at least 3-4 times now, not to mention your whole thread about your poor experience with the 35. Why don't you just return, sell, or send it in for repair instead of telling everyone how crummy it is when it's not? Perhaps just really try to get to the bottom of why yours produces poor quality images. It's not like it's a super-intricate piece of machinery. It's just some glass in a plastic tube. It either works or it doesn't. 99.99% of the people I've known or read about who own one, LOVE it. Frankly, I'd like to see you either get it repaired or swapped out for a new one just so you can finally enjoy what a great little lens it really is. As many times as I've seen you give it negative publicity, you must have really been burnt by it.


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## bc_steve

I used the 18-55 for about a year until i got some better lenses.  It is not terrible, but you definitely would want to shoot at f/8 as often as possible because at wider apertures than that you start to lose sharpness.  At any aperture it is not great in the corners.

I now use primes mostly and I am MUCH happier with them.  As someone who has owned both, I definitely prefer having the 35mm f/1.8!

Also a faster lens (wider aperture) like the 35mm is better for low-light photography, such as night and star photographs.  Unfortunately it is usually nice to have a wider field of view (ie. 18mm) for pictures of the stars, but I would still rather use the 35mm for it.  It will be much sharper at the same aperture, and opening the aperture even wider will either allow you to use a lower ISO or capture more stars.


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## CaptainNapalm

Rafterman said:


> CaptainNapalm said:
> 
> 
> 
> I bought the 35mm f/1.8 lens a month ago and am not impressed with it one bit. I much prefer the 18-55mm kit lens as it produces more consistent photos. The 35mm does perform better in low light if you're prepared to shoot subjects that are close and you only need a very shallow depth of field, if you want to capture a larger scene you need to step up a few stops and it's as good a performer as your kit lens. I took hundreds of shots with the 35mm prime and for every 10 I take more than half turn out blurry and unusable. I know my hand is steady and it's not camera shake. However, this is just my opinion on it, and I know everyone will disagree with me but that's my two cents. I actually suspect I might have a bad copy but who knows. Good luck with yours though.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I've seen you make a similar post to this at least 3-4 times now, not to mention your whole thread about your poor experience with the 35. Why don't you just return, sell, or send it in for repair instead of telling everyone how crummy it is when it's not? Perhaps just really try to get to the bottom of why yours produces poor quality images. It's not like it's a super-intricate piece of machinery. It's just some glass in a plastic tube. It either works or it doesn't. 99.99% of the people I've known or read about who own one, LOVE it. Frankly, I'd like to see you either get it repaired or swapped out for a new one just so you can finally enjoy what a great little lens it really is. As many times as I've seen you give it negative publicity, you must have really been burnt by it.
Click to expand...


I&#8217;ve made a thread about my experience with the 35mm and one single other post about it so your exaggeration is unnecessary. Let&#8217;s settle the confusion, I have not given anything or anyone bad publicity, I&#8217;m simply providing an honest reflection of my personal experience with this lens which is what the thread is after. An honest opinion that doesn&#8217;t follow the crowd is better than a silent one held back because it doesn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s my intention to have this lens looked at when I find some time, and until such time I will continue to give my honest feedback on it just as you and many others decide to praise it. I don&#8217;t dispute your feedback so let&#8217;s not dispute mine. If you follow my other thread about it you will learn that I&#8217;m not the only one sharing this opinion and my brief search online about the issue finds others in rarity that dislike it too. If nothing else, at least my post will open the idea to the OP that there are bad copies of lenses out there or that perhaps what&#8217;s good for 95% of people might not be good for everyone. But on a separate note, yeah I&#8217;m bummed out and have been burned by this lens a few times and I&#8217;m really hoping that what you say is true, there is something wrong with my copy, it gets fixed and I enjoy it as much as you do.


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## Rafterman

CaptainNapalm said:


> But on a separate note, yeah I&#8217;m bummed out and have been burned by this lens a few times and I&#8217;m really hoping that what you say is true, there is something wrong with my copy, it gets fixed and I enjoy it as much as you do.



And that's all I wanted to happen for you. I wasn't discounting your opinion or attacking you. Just want to see everyone happy with their gear.


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## CaptainNapalm

Rafterman said:


> CaptainNapalm said:
> 
> 
> 
> But on a separate note, yeah I&#8217;m bummed out and have been burned by this lens a few times and I&#8217;m really hoping that what you say is true, there is something wrong with my copy, it gets fixed and I enjoy it as much as you do.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And that's all I wanted to happen for you. I wasn't discounting your opinion or attacking you. Just want to see everyone happy with their gear.
Click to expand...


And I appreciate that.  It's just I am genuinely frustrated with my situation in that regard and I wish I didn't read all just dreamy reviews before buying this lens.  Eventually, I'll get to the bottom of what's forming my negative opinion, be it just my odd taste or a genuine defect in this particular lens, and I'm hoping that people in the future will read my posts and be able to relate if they're in the same situation.  I certainly don't mean to give bad publicity to anyone, just trying to help.  I'll come back and post something positive once I get this issue resolved.  In the meantime, I do agree that according to almost everyone this is a fantastic lens, exactly why I bought it - due to it's awsome reviews.


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## bc_steve

CaptainNapalm, you've probably already answered this but have you tried calibrating it (AF Fine Tune in the menu).

If you are still getting soft images when you manually focus then you have another issue, but it could be a quick and easy fix for your 35mm.  My 50mm prime was a ways out and it is much better now that I have calibrated it.


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## CaptainNapalm

bc_steve said:


> CaptainNapalm, you've probably already answered this but have you tried calibrating it (AF Fine Tune in the menu).
> 
> If you are still getting soft images when you manually focus then you have another issue, but it could be a quick and easy fix for your 35mm.  My 50mm prime was a ways out and it is much better now that I have calibrated it.



I haven't tried this. I will do so tonight and see if it helps. I appreciate this hint. Thanks!


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## bc_steve

It helps if it is front-focusing or back-focusing.  You just want to move the slider up or down until your subject is in the middle of the depth of field.  It is easiest to do at f/1.8 but it will calibrate it at this aperture (should still be an improvement).

You can buy a device to focus on that has an angled thing on the side that lets you see where it is in focus.  I made my own (http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/320868-lens-calibration.html) because I am either cheap or resourceful, but really you can use anything that has some depth to it.  Most people would recommend putting the memory card in your computer to look at it on the monitor but on the D7000 LCD screen zoomed in I was able to tell where the focused part was centred.

I hope it works out!

FYI my 35mm was almost bang on but I had to set my 50mm to -14.


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## bhop

bc_steve said:


> CaptainNapalm, you've probably already answered this but have you tried calibrating it (AF Fine Tune in the menu).
> 
> If you are still getting soft images when you manually focus then you have another issue, but it could be a quick and easy fix for your 35mm.  My 50mm prime was a ways out and it is much better now that I have calibrated it.




I posted in captainnapalm's other post about this, but maybe he missed it.. it helped me for sure.  Mine was way off on my D300.. I thought the lens was defective, but now it's one damned awesome lens after focus adjustment.


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## gregtallica

I have (access to) both, and my 35mm is way sharp. I just got the 35 about two weeks ago and took it on vacation, other than when I wanted the 200mm end of my 18-200 zoom, I had the 35 on my camera the whole time. I was loving the results. Sharp at low apertures, I really enjoyed the lens.

I say "access to" because my gf has the 18-55, and I've spent a good amount of time with it. It's a good lens, I haven't done any type of side by side comparison, but I think as I use all these lenses more and more and kind of develop my eye, I think it's got a better IQ than the 18-200 (which may be obvious), but in my ameture opinion, doesn't even come close to the 35mm.

Now, if you need to zoom...... that's a totally different battle. That's why you get them all!


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## CaptainNapalm

bhop said:


> bc_steve said:
> 
> 
> 
> CaptainNapalm, you've probably already answered this but have you tried calibrating it (AF Fine Tune in the menu).
> 
> If you are still getting soft images when you manually focus then you have another issue, but it could be a quick and easy fix for your 35mm.  My 50mm prime was a ways out and it is much better now that I have calibrated it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I posted in captainnapalm's other post about this, but maybe he missed it.. it helped me for sure.  Mine was way off on my D300.. I thought the lens was defective, but now it's one damned awesome lens after focus adjustment.
Click to expand...


Sorry I did miss that.  Thanks for the advice.


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## PropilotBW

I love my 35mm!  The 18-55 just sits and collects dust.  Now that I think about it, I don't believe I've put the 18-55 on my camera since I bought the 35mm 1.8, which has been almost a year.


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## CaptainNapalm

bc_steve & bhop: thanks for your input.  Thanks to you I was able to get my 35mm lens to actually produce some consistent sharp pictures.  To achieve that I needed to set the AF Fine tune to -10.  I haven't taken the time to properly calibrate it but just lowering the numbers to that range made a huge difference.  Conversely, going with the numbers above zero made matters worse.   I'll calibrate it more accurately on the weekend but it's good to see that it's actually making a difference.  Here is one of a few pics that came out consistently good under low light, hand held, f//1.8, shutter 1/20 or so, ISO 1600.  Prior to the -10 setting this would be impossible with my lens under little light.  This is a tiny version of the pic but it does look good.


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## Rafterman

CaptainNapalm said:


> This is a tiny version of the pic but it does look good.



A tiny version which is click-able to see a HUGE version. Very sharp shot! Glad you finally got it figured out!


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## CaptainNapalm

Rafterman said:


> CaptainNapalm said:
> 
> 
> 
> This is a tiny version of the pic but it does look good.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A tiny version which is click-able to see a HUGE version. Very sharp shot! Glad you finally got it figured out! :thumbup:
Click to expand...


Thanks Rafterman, now I can say that I am starting to like the 35mm lens and if it does keep performing well over the next little while I would definitely recommend it.


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## apvm

Glad to see this turns out good because I am going to get the 35mm 1.8 soon and was wondering after reading your post.


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## gregtallica

CaptainNapalm said:


> Rafterman said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CaptainNapalm said:
> 
> 
> 
> This is a tiny version of the pic but it does look good.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A tiny version which is click-able to see a HUGE version. Very sharp shot! Glad you finally got it figured out! :thumbup:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Thanks Rafterman, now I can say that I am starting to like the 35mm lens and if it does keep performing well over the next little while I would definitely recommend it.
Click to expand...


I love this post, knowing that it's working out for you. Congrats dude :thumbup:


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## jrizal

CaptainNapalm said:


> bc_steve & bhop: thanks for your input. Thanks to you I was able to get my 35mm lens to actually produce some consistent sharp pictures. To achieve that I needed to set the AF Fine tune to -10. I haven't taken the time to properly calibrate it but just lowering the numbers to that range made a huge difference. Conversely, going with the numbers above zero made matters worse. I'll calibrate it more accurately on the weekend but it's good to see that it's actually making a difference. Here is one of a few pics that came out consistently good under low light, hand held, f//1.8, shutter 1/20 or so, ISO 1600. Prior to the -10 setting this would be impossible with my lens under little light. This is a tiny version of the pic but it does look good.
> View attachment 39251



Dunno which I like better, the picture or the bottle!  Glad you had things worked out. Read your other posts and you were really frustrated and ranting. Trust all the reviews, that is one good lens especially given its price point. 

To the OP, like the others said the prime is a lot sharper but the 18-55mm is pretty decent. To sum it up:

18-55mm - more versatile due to its zoom capabilities
35mm - sharper and better in low light

Once you are more comfortable with your body and the capabilities of each lens (by actually trying them out), you will soon find out which lens is better suited for the occasion.


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## bc_steve

CaptainNapalm said:


> bc_steve & bhop: thanks for your input.  Thanks to you I was able to get my 35mm lens to actually produce some consistent sharp pictures.  To achieve that I needed to set the AF Fine tune to -10.  I haven't taken the time to properly calibrate it but just lowering the numbers to that range made a huge difference.  Conversely, going with the numbers above zero made matters worse.   I'll calibrate it more accurately on the weekend but it's good to see that it's actually making a difference.  Here is one of a few pics that came out consistently good under low light, hand held, f//1.8, shutter 1/20 or so, ISO 1600.  Prior to the -10 setting this would be impossible with my lens under little light.  This is a tiny version of the pic but it does look good.
> View attachment 39251



That is awesome!!  That pic looks nice and sharp.  I'm glad the lens is working better for you and hopefully you end up liking it as much as I do!


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## krice300

WOW!!  After reading this I fiddled around with the AF fine tune and now realize that I was having a similar problem and I wasn't aware. I thought everything was just fine.


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## RoCoFF

I have been thinking that my 50mm f/1.8 was just a touch fuzzy. I'm going home tonight and putting this to the test!


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## Janetta

Onera, I tried the 35 1.8 when I first started out with Nikon, because I'd just heard so many good things about this "freebie" and Canon didn't have any equivalents. So be honest, I didn't "totally" like it. It was OK - great even (as is obvious from some examples above) - but somehow I wasn't totally blown away - and especially if you are considering it vs the zoom lens that gives you the wider options, I confess that I often wished for something just a tad wider with the 35mm lens, especially having been used to shooting with in a 24-30mm range often.

That said, there was nothing to complain about per se and especially not about the price. I then tried the 17-55mm 2.8 fixed and somehow it got glued onto my camera even though I wasn't a zoom person per se. I just found it hard to remove that lens off my D7K  The marriage was just TOO GOOD.
If you ever plan to get that lens, definitely more expensive but IF you do, I'd say forget the 35mm AND the kit lens and wait for it! But that said, for the weight and the price, the 35mm is a great lens


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## Onera

bhop said:


> bc_steve said:
> 
> 
> 
> CaptainNapalm, you've probably already answered this but have you tried calibrating it (AF Fine Tune in the menu).
> 
> If you are still getting soft images when you manually focus then you have another issue, but it could be a quick and easy fix for your 35mm.  My 50mm prime was a ways out and it is much better now that I have calibrated it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I posted in captainnapalm's other post about this, but maybe he missed it.. it helped me for sure.  Mine was way off on my D300.. I thought the lens was defective, but now it's one damned awesome lens after focus adjustment.
Click to expand...


Hey, That's really nice, I already got the 35mm 1.8, but I'm with D5100 and I have no clue what is AF fine tune, neither google helped me. This "thing" should be calibrated always? Or I should take few tests for sharpness first? = )

Best Wishes


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## Nikanon

Onera said:


> bhop said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> bc_steve said:
> 
> 
> 
> CaptainNapalm, you've probably already answered this but have you tried calibrating it (AF Fine Tune in the menu).
> 
> If you are still getting soft images when you manually focus then you have another issue, but it could be a quick and easy fix for your 35mm.  My 50mm prime was a ways out and it is much better now that I have calibrated it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Hey, That's really nice, I already got the 35mm 1.8, but I'm with D5100 and I have no clue what is AF fine tune, neither google helped me. This "thing" should be calibrated always? Or I should take few tests for sharpness first? = )
> 
> Best Wishes
Click to expand...


*AF Tune is only used on a lens that has front/back focusing* *issues. I have the AF Tune setting my D7000 not sure about the D5100?*


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