Nikon L35AF.
I recently got hold of a Nikon L35AF. I’d heard good things about this camera and being a but of a self-confessed Nikon fanboy I decided to hunt one down on fleabay.
The copy I’ve got has got some fungus in the lens, something the naughty ebay seller forgot to mention, but I was blown away by its performance. It’s very sharp, with plenty of contrast and renders colours beautifully. There is some vignetting, apparently a trade-off for sharpness, but this suits me as I quite like natural lens vignetting especially with cheap, consumer grade film as was used here. It’s more noticeable when you’ve got lot of sky in the frame on a sunny day as you can see in the picture below.
Focussing is also fast and very accurate. I shot a 36 exp role and it didn’t miss focus once. There is a focus distance scale in the viewfinder with four indicators so you more or less know when you have achieved focus.
The automatic wind on mechanism is quite loud but not as loud as some people would have you think. If you want to shoot candidly with the L35AF you can keep the shutter button depressed after you’ve taken your shot and it won’t wind on until you release your finger.
…more to follow