35mm f/1.8G DX on D600 FX

Hey All,
I just took the plunge on my first DSLR, a refurbished D600 body (on sale this weekend via Nikon!). I'm now shopping for a lens. I had been more or less sold on the AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G, but a friend of mind has been trying to convince me the focal length of the 35mm 1.8 DX is the way to go in spite of being optimized for a DX sensor. What do you think? Why might one regret going the 35 route?

Thanks!

Alex

The AF-S 35mm will be a 35mm on your full frame D600. But I believe if you select DX and shoot with an AF-S lens, it will handicap the D600's MP's from 24 to I belive just 10 MP's.

The 35mm DX lens will NOT cover the whole D600 sensor size. You would end up with dark corners. I'd suggest to get the 50 1.8 and a second hand zoom like the 28-80 G lens that can be bought for about 50$. The lens you will want to get and that is worth saving for is the 24-70 2.8. Anything you will buy in the mean time should only be bought to fill in before you get the real lens.

DX lenses on FX sensors will vignette; how much depends on the individual lens. They are not optimized to cover the entire 24x36mm sensor size.

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Thanks

Just to further explain in case it comes up with your friend, the D600 does have a crop mode. Crop mode makes it behave like a DX. No different than if you cropped it yourself, but you get the benefit of a smaller file size from the start. The resulting dx-cropped image will be less pixels than a d7000, about 10mp. Its something to consider if you already had some dx lenses laying around. Like the others here have said, you don't want to buy the 35mm 1.8, you'd just be throwing away pixels.

The 50mm will be a great lens to have, but I would get a zoom first

The 50mm on your D600 will give you exactly the same field of view as a 35mm would give your friend on his cropped DX camera. And you will keep the whole 24 mp image.

While I don't own an FX sensor currently if I did I sure as heck wouldn't castrate it by using a DX lens unless there was some really compelling reason to do so; and shaving a few MP ain't EVEN a good enough reason. That's why they make really BIG memory cards.

So yes, I totally concur with your decision: the 50mm f/1.8 FX format lens is the way to go.

Hi All,
Thanks much for all this info. I think I'm triangulating some kind of answer here. It seems like what my friend said was pretty much correct. To quote him: "You can put that particular DX lens on an FX body, it has almost full frame coverage. The vignetting is minor/repairable in post and it's entirely gone after a few stops."

He was not suggesting using the DX lens in crop mode as some have suggested.

It's the "almost" full-frame coverage that I remain a bit fuzzy on.

When he says "it has almost full frame coverage" and when Wiley Coyote says: "I believe if you select DX and shoot with an AF-S lens, it will handicap the D600's MP's from 24 to I believe just 10 MP's" Is that basically saying the same thing? If that's the case, an over 50% reduction in sensor coverage seems a far cry from "almost full-frame coverage." At which point I'd have to emphatically agree with Horoscope Fish when they said, "I sure as heck wouldn't castrate it by using a DX lens unless there was some really compelling reason to do so."

The basic idea was to get the 35mm focal length with the substantial 1.8 f-stop without having to shell out 1,600 on this beauty.

He may be talking from experience. What happens is that SOME dx lenses cast a 'good enough' image on a full frame sensor. It is not guaranteed and not part of the specs. This image could be a bigger image than a crop mode image. It can vary from lens to lens. I do not have a full frame so I can't say how the 35 will perform. I'm sure someone here can say for sure. Maybe your friend has a full frame camera and that lens and he can say for sure.

If you want a 35mm on FX, I think the Sigma 35 1.4 @ 899.00 $ is the lens to get. For the same price, you can almost get the Nikon 50 1.8 and the 28 1.8… More food for thoughts.

I don't know how to post search results, but do a google search for "how does nikon 35mm 1.8 perform on full frame"
There are some reports of good results. One of those results will be Ken Rockwell and he has some examples of the vignetting.

That's helpful, Nick. So do you think that the variability you mention might mean that the 35mm DX lens might not slash the MP's down to 10 on the FX body?

He doesn't personally have this lens. He shoots a D700 with the FX 35mm I linked to in my last comment. He is speaking from experience, however, in that he says a good friend of his shoots a D800 with the DX 35mm with great results. I'm going to see if I can get some samples out of him... though he's pretty busy these days.

nickt said:

I don't know how to post search results, but do a google search for "how does nikon 35mm 1.8 perform on full frame"
There are some reports of good results. One of those results will be Ken Rockwell and he has some examples of the vignetting.

Click to expand...

There we go! That's the search string I should have been using. I was coming up with nothing in my previous efforts. Well done!

Stick with full frame lens, its like running a V8 with half the pistons, sure,, good to save gas, but where is the fun in that,, and remember, there is a huge array of used nikkor lens that will all work with this awesome camera.

Heck,, go out and buy some used series E old manual lens if you want to conserve money for a while. Play with the new camera,, should be awesome.

Ken Rockwell also says;

''The 35mm f/1.8 DX doesn't work well or at all on film or FX cameras''

If you plan to move to FX or film any time in the next several years, consider a
lens which will also cover FX, like the 35mm f/2
AF-D ($360), 28mm f/1.4D ($4,000) or 50mm f/1.8D ($130

Any time you crop, you are losing mp's. It looks like you may get away away with a lesser crop so it might not drop to a 10mp image. Also with some cropping you introduce some unknown crop factor and if you print at 4x6 you will have some unknown 'apparent focal length'. I'm sure it could be calculated. What I am trying to say is , ignoring vignetting of this particular lens, a 35mm lens on a dx acts like a 50m. On full frame it is still 35mm. That is a 1.5 crop factor. By you doing your own lesser crop, you are introducing your own crop factor. So when you print a standard size, you end up with say a 40mm field of view. I'm just guessing at the number. If I had a d600, sure I would try it. I would not buy the lens for use on a d600 just to save some $$. I'd want the something better to use my full frame and a 35 or 40mm view doesn't thrill me anyway.

edit: mixed up dx/fx
edit 2: I would NOT buy just to use on d6oo, wife yapping at me, can't type straight,lol

hello from the otherside
i had a 5100 with the dx 35 1.8g, and i upgraded to a D600
and i tried it on the D600 with crop mode off.
i was really surprised with the results!
its far better than i expected
the vignetting is minimal, and if you want, you can crop a bit, but far less than you will auto crop in the DX mode.
probably i expect something like a 20mp result, i will post some saple images soon

Ntinaras said:

hello from the otherside
i had a 5100 with the dx 35 1.8g, and i upgraded to a D600
and i tried it on the D600 with crop mode off.
i was really surprised with the results!
its far better than i expected
the vignetting is minimal, and if you want, you can crop a bit, but far less than you will auto crop in the DX mode.
probably i expect something like a 20mp result, i will post some saple images soon

Click to expand...

We got a few threads regarding this, newer than this '13 you found with sample shots. Do post yours though or just make a new thread.

Few shots using the 35mm dx on my D700 vignetting is minimal. This is straight out of camera.