Is Nikkor 50mm 1.2 on D800 any good for portraits?

[Derrel]

You might want to see how the 50.1,2 does as far as coma, on the type of night-time pin-point light sources you might run into. Looks to me like it needs to be stopped down to f/2.8 to alleviate it. The best affordable 50mm lens for coma correction at wide apertures, meaning affordable as in a lens priced at less than $4,000 or so for a Noct-Nikkor, or considerably more for one of the high-speed Leica lenses, is the Sigma 50mm ART lens.

Nikon 50mm f/1.2 Coma

 

[hulk2012]

You might want to see how the 50.1,2 does as far as coma, on the type of night-time pin-point light sources you might run into. Looks to me like it needs to be stopped down to f/2.8 to alleviate it. The best affordable 50mm lens for coma correction at wide apertures, meaning affordable as in a lens priced at less than $4,000 or so for a Noct-Nikkor, or considerably more for one of the high-speed Leica lenses, is the Sigma 50mm ART lens.

Nikon 50mm f/1.2 Coma

Hmm.. So what is the real point then of having them?

 

[tirediron]

Hmm.. So what is the real point then of having them?

So that one can say they have an f1.2 lens, and fellow photographers will know they spent a crazy amount of money on it.

 

[hulk2012]

Hmm.. So what is the real point then of having them?

So that one can say they have an f1.2 lens, and fellow photographers will know they spent a crazy amount of money on it.

No I'm mean for real..

 

[tirediron]

Hmm.. So what is the real point then of having them?

So that one can say they have an f1.2 lens, and fellow photographers will know they spent a crazy amount of money on it.

No I'm mean for real..

So do I. It was a lens designed to meet a need that did not exist.

 

[hulk2012]

So that one can say they have an f1.2 lens, and fellow photographers will know they spent a crazy amount of money on it.

No I'm mean for real..

So do I. It was a lens designed to meet a need that did not exist.

What about its bokeh?

 

[tirediron]

No I'm mean for real..

So do I. It was a lens designed to meet a need that did not exist.

What about its bokeh?

That's a personal taste thing; I'm VERY happy with the backgrounds rendered by my 85 1.4 and 70-200 2.8.

 

[Derrel]

You might want to see how the 50.1,2 does as far as coma, on the type of night-time pin-point light sources you might run into. Looks to me like it needs to be stopped down to f/2.8 to alleviate it. The best affordable 50mm lens for coma correction at wide apertures, meaning affordable as in a lens priced at less than $4,000 or so for a Noct-Nikkor, or considerably more for one of the high-speed Leica lenses, is the Sigma 50mm ART lens.

Nikon 50mm f/1.2 Coma

Hmm.. So what is the real point then of having them?

Honestly, I believe when the 50mm f/1.2 was premiered, it was a sort of "proof of capability" thing with Nikon. The old-line company pride issue; the "we can do this!" type of Japanese company pride in engineering at being able to offer an affordable yet very high-speed lens is still viewed by the camera makers as a proof of one's mettle as a company. The sales volumes are low, but there's a sort of halo effect from having some exotic things in the company's product matrix. At one time, having a 50mm f/1.2 lens that was "affordable", was a matter of prestige among the Japan-based SLR companies. The 58mm f/1.2 Noct-NIKKOR was the "real" night-time lens, superbly corrected for coma at wide f/stops, with hand-ground aspherical element design, and a four-figure price tag back when the 50mm f/1.2 was under $400 new. In the days of the big 35mm SLRs competing for business, we had some makers offering just a tiny bit faster lenses. F/2 gave way to f/1.8l then some makers offered f/1.7 lenses instead of the f/1.8 models. I think the 50mm f/1.2 was really kind of a feature specification check-box kinda' thing. It established that Nikon was 'serious'. Same thing with say the 105mm f/1.8 Nikkor. Large-ish, heavy, and slow to focus, versus the smaller, lighter, more-compact and DREAMY 105mm f/2.5, one of the easiest-to-focus lenses EVER made!!!

These days, I really do not see much point to an old, film-era 50mm f/1.2. BUY a real,modern lens with superb correction...the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART lens if you want status and high performance performance in a $900 50mm lens that easily beats Canon's 50/1.2-L, and rivals Zeiss's new Optus. I mean...I just do NOT see the point of a manual focus 50/1.2 lens in this day and age, for use on a d-slr.