To compare real-life sharpness in the corner and center of the frame, we shot this scene with the Nikkor DX 35mm f/1.8G and DX 18-105mm VR lenses mounted on a Nikon D90 body at all apertures. The DX 18-105mm VR was adjusted to deliver the same field-of-view. The D90 was set to RAW to avoid in-camera JPEG corrections; all files were processed in Nikon's Capture NX 2.2.3 with lens corrections disabled and the default sharpness of 3.

At 35mm f4.5, the DX 18-105mm VR delivers a good result that's bereft of fringing and only suffering from a little softness in the corners; indeed the worst aspect is visible darkening due to vignetting, but it's still a great result for this kit lens. It's much closer to the DX 35mm f/1.8 at this point than our previous comparison with the DX 16-85mm VR, and we'd say in terms of sharpness it's roughly equivalent to the prime when set to a point between f2 and f2.8.

At f5.6 the DX 18-105mm VR becomes sharper in the corners and reduces the effect of vignetting too; it's now looking very close to the output from the prime lens. Finally at f8, the DX 18-105mm VR improves a little more in terms of sharpness and has eliminated the worst of its vignetting.

Moving onto the crops taken from the centre, the DX 18-105mm VR performs when well viewed in isolation, but looks soft compared to the DX 35mm f/1.8G. The DX 18-105mm VR at 35mm f4.5 looks roughly similar to the DX 35mm f/1.8 at f2, and while its sharpness and contrast improves at f5.6, it lacks the ultimate crispness of the prime lens at its sweetspot, along with the very finest details.

Overall though, the DX 18-105mm VR performs very well for a kit lens, and switching it with the DX 35mm f/1.8 won't bring you the same degree of benefit in the corners as we saw on the DX 16-85mm VR – at least at the 35mm focal length anyway. But the image from the DX 35mm f/1.8G remained crisper, especially at its optimal aperture settings, and of course it's also much brighter. So even though the corner performance of the kit zoom is pretty respectable at 35mm, the DX 35mm f/1.8 remains a preferable companion at this focal length.

Now let's pitch the DX 35mm f/1.8 versus the DX 18-200mm VR II.