Nikon L35AF Camera

Product Information

There’s no memory for this, so you will repeatedly have this dialogue – camera saying “I want to use flash”, and you responding “but I don’t want you to”. These optical issues covered, images made by the Canon are pretty damn excellent when shooting outdoors in bright sunlight. The AF35M may be a perfect 35mm point-and-shoot for a sunny vacation or a mid-summer roadtrip. Our good readers will just have to take our word on this, since during the period in which this camera was reviewed we’ve had nothing but grey skies and seven feet of snow. Sorry. Sharpness is mixed. When everything is in focus, it looks great, but the shallow depth of field and the basic AF system can be fooled. For landscapes, it does the job well, but the One Touch struggled with getting people and small subjects in focus.

Nikon L35AF - Long Term Review - Analog Dayz Nikon L35AF - Long Term Review - Analog Dayz

When you use a fully automatic point and shoot camera, absolutely everything is done for you. There’s nothing interesting or unique about the process. Its no different than using a modern digital point and shoot camera, with the exception being you cannot preview your shots after taking them, and you’re still limited to the number of exposures in the film. The flash — powered by the same AA batteries — is quite good. I found it to be powerful enough for most of my shots. But mainly, I liked how easy it was to get out of the way. Nikon’s lens is fast enough not to need flash for most of the day-lit scenes, even if the camera suggests using the flash in a form of it popping up. Pushing it down to its place is all that’s needed to inform the camera that you don’t need one. This is vastly better than going through settings each time as is the case with most ‘90s point-and-shoot film cameras. Thankfully, the camera does work just about enough of the time to use it. My patience doesn’t stretch to reviewing a camera that’s entirely broken, but I can just about cope with it being a little bit broken.

Once again, two years later, Nikon would release a third L-series camera simply known as the Nikon One Touch AF3. This camera combined many of the best features from the first and second L35AFs and added a few more things to the mix. The AF3 boasted the Macro function of the lens, plus added a flash override button, and returned the 46mm threaded filter ring.

Nikon L35AF/AD | Camerapedia | Fandom Nikon L35AF/AD | Camerapedia | Fandom

I have to change batteries a lot though – because I’m stupid, and forget to turn off the camera, but also the Pikaichi has got a rather strong motor to advance the film. Much like the later AF3 functions are somewhat limited. There is a grand total of 5 controllable features on this camera, but just like when using the AF3, sometimes it makes you wonder just what else you could possibly need from a point & shoot. The shutter I believe I can see that images from the premium models like Nikon Ti’s, Contax T2 or Minolta TC-1 are one level ahead of this, but I guess I had a hard time to distinguish images from the models I shot alongside in a blind test. Another pleasing feature of the lens is the position of the light meter. The camera will accept a filter, and since the light meter sensor is inside the area covered by the meter, any filters added to the camera will have the relevant affect on the meter.Anyway, for our purposes, I’m going to call this camera the Nikon One Touch for the rest of this review. For all of the advancements these models boasted, it wouldn’t be for much if the images weren’t any good. While we generally think today that your basic point and shoot camera should be cheaply built with a low expectation for quality optics and sharp images, these cameras pre-dated that “disposable” mentality that has become so prevalent over the past couple of decades. Both of these cameras had lenses that their respective manufacturers were proud of, and it’s this reputation that has allowed these models to enjoy some level of desirability among collectors nearly 3 decades later. It frames the shot beautifully, without getting excessive — the slight darkening in the corners draws the eye to the center, where you’re treated to an incredibly sharp rendering. The lens is also just a bit contrasty, which gives a kind of power and gravitas to the images, especially when paired with a contrasty film like Ektar 100 or Tri-X. This is possibly the only photo that could follow the Traction Avant! As it did in real life, of course! André Lefèbvre and Flaminio Bertoni were again the principal designers, but were joined by Paul Magès, who designed the self-levelling hydro-pneumatic suspension, one of the cars defining features. The hardest part to get going on L35AD2 is installing the CR2032 battery to power its mostly useless date feature that would burn digits into your photos. It only shows years up to 2019, thus if you really want that on your film, it may make the most sense to just show the day of the month and time. My copy also had all of that in Japanese.