I am excited to share some of my favorite lenses with you and one of the best lenses for wedding photography. Part of this process is going over each and every one of my lenses and why I love them. A lot of times I get asked what my go-to lens is. Well, let’s explore why I pick the 35mm 1.4 for this review!  Will you do me a favor, let me know your favorite in the comments below. However, the 35mm is extremely versatile, has n amazing depth of field, and is surprisingly sharp when shooting wide open. The caveat with this Nikon lens and wit all of the models with an aperture of this wide open is you must have your focus wits about you. Whether you are picking a sigma, Nikon or a Canon this will apply.  This lens and its features, when it has a low aperture, gives you a wide range of options. It is great for shooting, portraits, low light, macro and beyond! You’ll see in the images below that include the EXIF data for some randomly picked samples

With this being one of the best lenses for photography I find myself using it over and over. When I first arrive and photograph the details of a wedding it is stuck to my camera like glue. I have actually subbed it for photographing macro shots when I have a high megapixel camera such as the d850 and the canon MKiv. When I look at the stats in the wedding galleries I do see a trend of it being used more than others.

During the portrait session there is a lot of group photos taken with the 35mm 1.4, In fact, it is the last lens I used at the end of the night. Here are a few sample images from the lens! On my last note or point on the features, when I photograph my long exposure shots at the end of the night I am able to maximize shooting speed with the wide open 1.4 aperture. Remember,  you must have your focus spot on when shooting that low of an aperture but otherwise you will love it!

One of my all-time favorite photographs of Katie and Jeff during tropical storm Beryl in St. Augustine at the white room.

This was my last family photo shoot of the holidays, (yes we end it around December 15th) But the sky was just popping and I wanted an extremely sharp outline of this sunset silhouette shot. Low iso, wide aperture and just love it.

Hotels sometimes are the worse to shoot in. Their lighting is right up there with, well you get the point. So using the low apeture and an LED in this gave me a little better shot. The room was a mess so I used the hallway.

Generally, you’ll need absolutely no additional light. This photo was made with available light and primarily the sparklers as the fill lighting.

Pre 2004 when the low lighting and off camera flash weren’t a thing. Well, the were but there was a battery pack, no triggering unless it was a wire. Again with hotels they’re not always set up for weddings so you have to improvise. The final image I photoshopped the handles out and it made for a cool background

It’s still number 1 in my bag

After seeing a few of the images, you probably are already seeing my aperture was wide-open on a lot of the photos. I use this lens (Nikon 35mm 1.4) in a lot of conditions that require low lighting. As I stressed before you must have your focus game on point. It’s definitely not an action lens, but it can be used to focus fast enough for most dancing, and children that might be quick on their feet.  When you purchase this lens for your craft you’ll fall in love with the soft bokeh at night and amazing shallow depth of field at f1.4

Remember, there are several options for the 35mm 1.4, Canon, Nikon, Sony Users on Canon cameras, using the Sigma 35mm art lens required a firmware update otherwise they experienced a weird vignette that would ruin their photos. I have been photographing with the same 35mm 1.4 since around 2010 and have enjoyed it more and more  as the years go on.

I wasn’t lying when I told you, “you have to be spot on” with the focus. I don’t pixel peep but this one here is just slightly out of focus on the left eyelash but the right seems good. Other than that the closer you are to the minimal focus the shallower the DOF you will see.

Thank’s for reading. Please leave me a note to improve the article for you. Check out the 50mm review here and my favorite macro lens and focal stacking tutorial Get out there shoot! Make some magic~ Letsgo!