The 35 mm F1.8: the one lens to take

The 35 mm F1.8 is a small lens for the days when you take only one. The 35 mm view is close to what the eye naturally attends to, and it is at home in the street, indoors and at the dinner table. It also focuses about 18 centimetres from its subject, for a magnification of 0.45 times, so the stamens of a flower, the dial of a watch or the detail of a piece of handwork can be photographed without changing to a macro lens.

The barrel is about 58 mm long and weighs about 290 g. It is black, with one ribbed focus ring and no switches to spare. The ring works electronically, turns smoothly and can be reassigned in the camera menu to aperture or exposure compensation. The front element has a coating that lets a fingerprint be wiped off with a lens cloth; the mount is metal, with a dust gasket at the back.

The design is 12 elements in 10 groups, one of them aspherical. The centre is sharp enough at f/1.8 and the whole frame clears by f/2.8; for close-ups f/4 to f/5.6 makes depth of field easier to control. The built-in stabiliser is worth about four stops, enough to photograph a street at night, hand-held, at a quarter of a second, and the stepping motor is quiet enough for filming on the move.

• At close range the front of the lens is very near the subject; take care that the barrel does not block the light.
• There is no aperture ring; the aperture is set from the camera's dial.
• The filter thread is 55 mm, and the supplied hood reverses for storage.

We would recommend it to street and travel photographers who like to go out light, to families recording children and meals, and to film-makers who want a small wide lens for another camera position. With a camera it can hang round the neck all day without tiring anyone. In the box are the lens, the hood, front and rear caps and a warranty card.