I’m currently in the process of revamping the smorgasbord of lenses that I own for use with my Nikon D300. Everything is here so far except for the Nikon 35mm 1.8.
I already own the 50mm1.8 — but one of the primary reasons I’m getting the 35mm 1.8 (besides it being a bit more “normal” on a DX form factor) is that my 50mm 1.8 + the way I seem to take pictures puts me in a position where I get a “ghost” or “hot spot” in the middle of the frame more often than I should.
According to Thom Hogan this ghosting is caused by a reflection off the Bayer filter in the camera at small apertures due to the lens design. I haven’t seen the technical details (which would probably be over my head) — but the effect is this:
Let’s look a little closer at that door:
And that’s not really something that can be edited out easily. I’ve had several shots turn out like this where I was using small apertures (in this case f/22) to give myself a sharper image and longer shutter time (not that I needed it for a door).
I’m thinking that the more modern and DX-optimized 35mm 1.8 will alleviate this ghosting effect and give me that bit more normal 50mm (on a DX sensor) field of view. It will likely end up being my most used lens in people-photography situations (I fall back to others for the pets).