[inkista]

Originally Posted by jocelynaz

Sooo....setting aside the autofocus issue on the D40 with the nifty fifty, is a 35mm prime better to have for portrait photography than a 50mm?

I think it depends on your preferred working distance and whether you have a crop body or not. Typically, longer lenses have better image quality than shorter ones, but if you're working in a smaller space or tend to do group portraits, or you're on a crop body, the 35 might feel more comfortable.

Myself, I prefer an 85 and a 135, and I shoot a crop body, so I do think that personal preference probably has the biggest say on what's a better fit.

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

What, praytell, is the difference between this and the 30mm f/2? As far as I can tell, it'st just the AF-S and 1/3 of a stop.

Well, it's a newer design, obviously. The 35/2 is probably a warhorse from the film days that's held up well. The 1.8 has not only tweaks, but is also designed for DX, which is less demanding than FX. And, judging by those MTFs, I'd say the newer lens is sharper, has more contrast, and better bokeh than the older f/2.

dpreview also has an interview up with the folks who decided this was what Nikon needed to offer, and they said they're specifically going after the D40/D60 market, where there really is no good, cheap, fast prime and certainly not one that autofocuses. They made it 35mm to create a normal for crop body.

Originally Posted by irene67

What exactly does AF-S mean?

That the lens motor is silent wave; it's fast and makes no noise. (Sigma calls it HSM; Canon USM).

It just seems strange that the 1.8, which offers a built in motor AND is obviously faster than the 2.0, can be OVER $100 cheaper than the 35 f/2.0. It just makes me think there is something I'm missing...there just HAS to be something better about 2.0.....

Don't forget the 1.8 will also be smaller and lighter. What the 35/2 has going for it is compatibility: backwards or forwards, depends on your point of view.

As has been remarked, the 35/2 is an older lens. It's far more useful for manual focusing (if you look at the 1.8, it has no distance scale, no DoF scale). The 1.8 also, as has been mentioned, is a DX and G-mount. It has limited use on an F-mount film body (setting the aperture without an aperture ring can be tricky to impossible); and on any full-frame body it will vignette, because its image circle is only designed to cover an APS-C sensor. If you upgrade to a D700 or D3 or decide to get/keep an F-mount Nikon film body, you can still use the 35/2, while the 35/1.8 would be relatively useless.

The other thing is, you also have to be aware that lenses age. Designs get superseded by newer ones. You're comparing the 35/2 where the design is basically 20 years old (and has a heritage that goes back 50 years) with some refinements and tweaks along the way, to a brand new lens that's just been designed from scratch.

The thing is, the 35/1.8 isn't a pro-quality level lens. It's mean to be a really nice consumer lens for crop-body digital shooters without a lot of cash to throw around, who want to do available light. There are actually quite a few folks who are unhappy about the 35/1.8 NOT being the lens they wanted.