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Nikon L35AF


The L35AF was Nikon's first AF camera. This camera has a cult following in photography forums but honestly after being disappointed with my Olympus XA2 i though i should hold my breath until i got my films back from developing. There are something like 3-4 models which look quite similar to this one but without the 35mm f/2.8 Nikon lens which is supposed to be a special piece of glass. You can find here a page with the history of this lens, it is a sonar design semi wide angled and very nicely coated. If you are into lens designing (and not only) check this page out. 

By the moment you pick this camera up, you can understand that it is a well build camera. A bit heavy but it balances nicely into your hands, it has a nice heft to it. Back in the 80's it was an expensive camera to buy and the main selling point was of course the lens. What Nikon should have thought better are the ergonomics. This might sound weird since the L35AF has only one button but try to take a picture in low light by holding the flash down with your finger (this is the way to disable flash) and pull the little switch next to the lens (exposure compensation) at the same time. Another thing is the film rewind. You need to read the manual first as the camera does not rewind the film automatically after the last frame. Instead it just....does nothing. I was pressing the shutter button thinking that the batteries are dead. You have to figure it out or read the manual. 
The lens is very - very sharp.
The main complain of the people who are using this camera is the noisy motor drive.  This it true to some extend but there is a way to work around this problem. The camera will take the picture when you press the
button but it will not advance to the next frame until you release it. So what i do is actually take a picture and do not release the button until i have walk away. This makes the Nikon one of the most silent cameras i've own. 

Those who have already read the story behind the L35AF 's lens design will notice that one of the trade offs for keeping the sharpness up is the light fall off on the corners otherwise known as vignetting. Now, there is a common misconception here as most people don't know that the design of the leaf shutter can produce this light fall off and not the lens itself. A leaf shutter will open from the centre towards the edge and this means that the centre of the picture will receive more exposure in the centre and less at the corners of the frame and thus leading to vignetting. People argue that the L35AF vignettes alot. Not according to my experience, it vignettes as much as the Yashica T4 and certainly less than the Olympus XA2.

From top to bottom: T4 / L35AF / XA2

The camera produces really nice pictures, virtually indistinguishable from the Yashica T4 for the 1/20th of the price.

On of the coolest figures of this camera is the fact that when pressing the shutter button, a needle points towards four icons in the viewfinder in order to indicate the distance in the viewfinder. This is cool, no other camera does that as far as i know (update: The Ricoh TF-900D does it and it is cooler, with backlit icons on the viewfinder). Exposure-wise, i think that it underexposes a bit, next time i will expose my 400 asa as 320 and see how it will perform. 


Conclusion

The Nikon L35AF was given the nickname "Pikaichi" which means "top notch" in Japanese. And truly it is, it is a camera that produces beautiful pictures with a lot of details. I would consider the L35AF as a serious contestant for the tittle of the best point-and-shoot camera, the results are as good as Yashica's T4 and it costs less that 1/10th of the price. For sure within the top 5 of the "camera-in-the-car" list.

Lasting impressions
I have sold this camera since. For me the Nikon represents the ultimate P&S camera, it has such a great lens and the price tag is unbelievably low (You can get one for £15). Yet the results match or outperform compacts with 10X its price. If you are a P&S guy GO GET ONE NOW !!!!

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