NIKON L35AF: THE PERFECT POINT AND SHOOT
MARCH 16 2022
I might be biased to the L35AF because I am a huge Nikon fan, but I honestly think it is the perfect point and shoot, for me at least. If you’ve been shooting film for a while, you know how significant the search for the perfect point and shoot is. You need one that compliments the rest of your kit, that looks nice when you're carring it around with friends, that takes nice photos but is also easy to use, and most importantly one that you like and want to shoot. It’s hard to check off all the boxes and I have been through my share of point and shoots before I found the ONE that does it all for me, the Nikon L35AF.
I recently took my L35AF on a trip with me to New Orleans, I’ll talk about that trip later, but it was the only other camera that I had with me and it did a fantastic job so I figured it was time to give it a proper little review.
Like I said, I really like Nikon so I was always drawn to the Nikon L35AF but they proved hard to find and fairly expensive, or at least what I though was expensive when I was looking to buy my first point and shoot. The first point and shoot that I ended up getting and using for a little bit was the Nikon One Touch which is the second generation of the L35AF and slightly cheaper because it lacks some features of its older brother. The camera was fine but now having used the L35AF the build and usability was nowhere near the infamous “pikaichi”
BUILD
Lets start off on the outside with the build. The camera is plastic and has that retro 80’s look to it. It’s basically designed like a rectangle with a lens on it but it’s nice to hold and great to have around the neck with the two side lugs. The plastic feels pretty sturdy, and I’m not worried about it with proper care but I’m not confident that it could survive a drop or hard knock. If you’ve held a Wii remote or a Nintendo DS the plastic feels just like that, sturdy but not strong enough to protect the electronics from a strong impact.
The worst part about the build is the battery door. It’s a super flimsy piece of soft plastic (not really rubber but I don’t know what to call it). It can pop open easily and it shifts around a lot so I usually just tape it down but then it’s good to go!
One of the best things about the build is that the lens has 46mm filter rings which is pretty rare on a point and shoot. This is great if you’re like me and want a UV filter over every piece of glass you own :) or if you actually use filters then I suppose it’s a nice feature too.
But the BEST BEST BEST thing about this camera, and the reason that it’s my perfect point and shoot is the ISO dial around the lens. I shoot a lot of expired film so it is really nice to be able to change the ISO and rate film differently by it’s expiry date. It’s also a great feature if you love to shoot Portra 400 at 200… for tha tones you know
IMAGE QUALITY
Image quality is probably one of the more important things to a camera review, and the Nikon L35AF does not disappoint. I’ve shot a handful of point and shoots and a lot of them have a point and shoot esque characteristic to them.. it’s hard to describe but I find that with a lot of cameras you can kind of tell it came from a point and shoot. With the L35AF I find that this isn’t the case, the images are on par if not better than some of my SLR photos.
Note I have NOT shot with any point and shoot with Zeiss glass, I’m sure that those results are very very good, for this blog when I refer to other point and shoots it's the ones that I have shot with which are all around the same price or cheaper than the L35AF.
It might not be the best example, and unfortunately, I do not have any side-by-side pictures from the L35AF and another camera, but if you look at the images above the Stylus epic seems to squeeze the subject and change the proportions of the image. Since it is squeezing the center of the image this is pincushion distortion which makes the photo appear unrealistic and toyish. The image from the L35AF is much more true to the scene, the proportions are persevered and the photo appears normal. Like an SLR with a professional lens the L35AF captures the scene as correctly as possible, and this is why I choose to carry it with me most often. With the L35AF I’m confident in the results, and although I do enjoy the warped and antiquated look of some of my point and shoots, I would much rather have the L35AF when I'm walking around and don't know what I'll be shooting. It just performs consistently in every situation.
And as far as sharpness goes the lens is really sharp! It always produces plenty of detail, the results are never too soft and they are perfectly contrasty, not to harsh but enough to separate the elements in the frame beautifully.
THE END OF THE REVIEW...
I’ve never really done a proper camera review and I’m not so much a technical person so I don’t know what else there is to talk about… The electronics in the camera seem find, I haven’t had a problem with mine however there was some corrosion in the batter that I had to clean off when I first got it. Um.. What else.. I guess it’s just a fantastic camera, my all time favorite and I highly recommend that you try it out, especially if you are still on your quest for your perfect point and shoot.
Thanks for reading and hanging along through my first gear review :) I’m planning on doing some more of these with the other cameras that I’ve owned!! So with that I’ll see you next week and I’ll leave you with my favorite picture that I’ve taken with the L35AF
