Nikkor 35-200mm AIs vintage lens review

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Between the 70s and 80s, zoom lenses were rising in popularity and, after three years of development, Nikon released the 35-200 in 1985.
Allegedly, it was a technological marvel at the time, created with the aid of rapidly improving computer processing, allowing manufacturers to push the boundaries of what was previously possible.
The lens is made of metal and hard plastic, it weights around 700g, it is 11.9 to 17cm long and it has an external diameter of 70mm, with a 62mm front thread.
The iris has 7 blades, the aperture is clicked and it goes from f3.5 at 35mm or f4.5 at 200mm to f22 without half steps.
It uses a push pull zoom and focus, with a wide textured grip and it turns 150 degrees.
Minimum focusing distance is 1.6 meters throughout the zoom range but if you push this button and turn the barrel it can focus up to 30cm at 35mm and 1.3 meters at 200mm.
The Nikon F mount has a flange distance of 46.5mm.

Overall build quality is great, but there are a few things that I don’t like about this lens.

The aperture is very light and can be easily knocked around, while the push pull zoom is stiff and I absolutely despise having to use this barrel extension thing to have a useable minimum focus at anything wider than 200mm.

And lastly it feels cumbersome even on Nikon dslrs.

Sharpness is good at 35mm both wide open and stopping down. At 200mm it is quite bad wide open, but it improves a lot stopping down.

Chromatic aberration is present at all apertures, but rarely distracting.

Colors are neutral and saturation is a bit muted, but it has good contrast.

Specular highlights are all over the place, from small with lots of chromatic aberration to big and soft and everything in between.

It is prone to flaring, but ghosting is well controlled.

And here you can see how much it distorts.


I don’t like this lens and not because of the push pull, that was “fine”. The main reason is that it is annoying to use.

I can deal with the softness at 200mm, but not with having to engage macro mode every time I’m not shooting a landscape.

Image quality is mostly good, although it lacks a bit of character and it is a versatile lens, but it is just so annoying to use.

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