A Photographer's Notes | The Nikon Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.2 S – The Ultimate Portrait Lens?

Nikon has slowly been filling out its Z-Mount lens lineup with a wide variety of lenses over the last few years. At the pinnacle of these lenses is the S series of lenses. These lenses are known to be the best in both build and optical quality, making them both expensive and highly sought after by professional photographers. One such lens that has been recently announced is the Nikkor Z 35mm f1.2 S lens. I was ever so lucky as to borrow one for a few days and do a fun test shoot in Shibuya.

This lens has many amazing features. What piqued my interest, though, is this lens combines the wideness of the 35mm focal length with the shallow depth of field of the f/1.2 aperture. Nikon has never done this in the past. It seems to be a truly unique lens so I was quite excited to get the opportunity to try it!

Shibuya Test Shoot

To test out the lens, I invited Japanese locking dancer HIYORI to join me for a session in Shibuya. I wanted to see how the bokeh (the out-of-focus part of the background/foreground of images) the f/1.2 produces does with the busyness of Shibuya. Personally, I love utilizing bokeh to separate my subject from the background by using wide apertures like the f/1.2. However, as wider focal lengths usually mean less bokeh, I was curious to see the results.

To start our session, we met up at the iconic Shibuya crossing. I knew there were lots of distracting elements, such as signs, billboards, and other people bound to be in the background of our images. With the wide f/1.2 aperture, the bokeh had the potential to make it less distracting. To be honest, I was quite surprised by the results!

Sharp Subject, Beautiful Background Blur

Even at 35mm, this lens produces amazing bokeh. It really helped HIYORI pop from the background and be isolated in my images, despite all the signs and other distracting elements that can be found at the Shibuya crossing. But even with the shallow depth of view at f/1.2, HIRORI's face was super sharp and crisp. This combination gave the images a unique look I had not seen from other lenses I had used in the past.

Low Light Performance

From there, we went to several other locations around Shibuya, and the lens worked amazing on each one. One aspect of using lenses with wider apertures, such as f/1.2, is that they are great for use in darker environments and locations. That's why I chose to shoot in both a tunnel and under one of the JR track bridges.

By using the f/1.2 aperture, I could keep my shutter speed high and ISO low, which allows for high-quality and less noisy images even when there is not an ideal amount of light. I think if I were to shoot with even an f/2.8 lens (kind of the standard aperture for high-end zoom lenses) in these locations, I would have been forced to increase my ISO significantly. That would have made the images a little more noisy than I like, so the f/1.2 was a big help.

Video Performance

During our photo shoot I was also shooting some video as well as I wanted to see how video shot at f/1.2 would look. I should point out that if you are shooting video at f/1.2 outside, there is a very good chance you will need to add an ND filter to the lens. Because I don't have one that fits the 35mm f/1.2, when we were shooting outside, I was forced to stop down a few f-stops.

When shooting in the darker locations, though, I was able to shoot video at f/1.2, and again, the video looks just as amazing as the photos! The separation of HIYORI from the background allows me to force the viewer to focus just on her face in the clips we shot as it bokehs out all the distracting elements in the background. I think using this for video, not only photos, could allow for some very creative and engaging images to be created.

Worth the Investment?

In the end, I really enjoyed testing out the Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.2 S lens and think it is something I would love to have in my camera bag. Yes, it is much bigger and heavier than the 35mm f/1.4 I already own, but that size and weight difference means there is zero compromise and maximum image quality when using this lens. It's not something I can pick up right when it becomes available, but it is near the top of my short wish list of gear I would love to pick up this year.

Author: Jason Halayko