Yesterday, I opined that the 35mm F1,4 Fujinon was a 'monster'. It is.

One of the reasons I've been slow to pick up digital-age lenses is that, generally, they are much, much larger than their film-age equivalents- at least when comparing depth-of-focus equivalence. The 35mm F1,4 Fujinon covers the smaller APS-C image circle, but is longer, wider, and more voluminous than either the Nikkor 50/2 or the Summicron 50/2, both of which cover image circles roughly 2,25x the size. Of course, neither of the other two autofocus. And while neither the Leica nor the Nikon lenses have as fast a maximum apertures, their effective DOF is the same as the Fujinon wide open.

Despite its size, the Fujinon is lighter than the Nikkor by nearly 40g, and than the Summicron by nearly 13g. Of course, because it lacks focus helicoids and hardware-controlled aperture gears, for all practical comparisons, it is largely a hollow tube.

I've had very little time to test the Fujinon, but I can say that its out-of-focus rendering is, at least to these eyes, more pleasant than either the Summicron or the Nikkor. The Leica tends to over-sharpen highlight points, drawing halos and other aberrations around distant highlights. The Nikkor is much the same. (It's little surprise: the 50/2 Ai Nikkor has been called "the Japanese Summicron".) The Nikkor, however, is one of the centrally sharpest lenses I have ever used and has been the secret lens behind a number of HiFi product advertising photographs.