what next? nikon lenses for portraits

[shadowlands]

I sold my 50mm F1.4G and brought back my former 50mm F1.8D. I don't miss the 1.4G at all.

Those two lenses are comparable--although you should consider upgrading to a 1.8g.

Me? No thanks. I love my 50mm F1.8D. I don't want the G model. My 50mm F1.8D is a keeper.

 

[cptkid]

50mm is not a great choice for portraits. It's okay for 2/4 lengths & full body shots, but if you want to shoot portraits (headshots) on a budget I would recommend the 85mm 1.8d or 1.8g.

 

[astroNikon]

I sold my 50mm F1.4G and brought back my former 50mm F1.8D. I don't miss the 1.4G at all.

Those two lenses are comparable--although you should consider upgrading to a 1.8g.

If they are comparable, then why "upgrade"?
I don't mean to flame or anything ... I'm just curious as I have a 50mm 1.8D also. The price point can't be beat for the quality and AF/AF-D lens are alot less $$.

 

[pumpercaptain]

Ok, let me show my inexperience and ignorance here, as I too am looking to invest in a 50mm. I have all DX equipment (D-7000,80,70,40). Everyone seems to recommend a 50mm for portrait type work... but with the DX format the length increases by 1.5 times I believe, which seems like it would be difficult to use indoors for what I want to do... I have a 35mm 1.8G. Why is this lens not a good lens to use in place of the 50mm for portrait work, since its closer to 50mm when used with DX?

 

[bc_steve]

35mm doesn't equal 52mm on a DX camera. It has the same field of view as 52mm on a full-frame camera, but it will still have the distortion of a 35mm lens.

As far as a 50mm goes I have the f/1.8D lens, and I was just using it a couple of hours ago, wide open. I find out of all my lenses, it preforms the worst wide open. Not as sharp and with relatively bad chromatic aberration. Just wondering if the G lens is any better in this respect, and if so I would probably recommend spending the extra cash.

 

[TamiAz]

I love my 50mm 1.8G for portraits and it's very affordable...Everyone should have a nifty fifty in their bag!

 

[Mach0]

35mm doesn't equal 52mm on a DX camera. It has the same field of view as 52mm on a full-frame camera, but it will still have the distortion of a 35mm lens.

As far as a 50mm goes I have the f/1.8D lens, and I was just using it a couple of hours ago, wide open. I find out of all my lenses, it preforms the worst wide open. Not as sharp and with relatively bad chromatic aberration. Just wondering if the G lens is any better in this respect, and if so I would probably recommend spending the extra cash.

Yes. Mine is pretty sharp wide open.

 

[bc_steve]

Here is an example about what I am talking about. A bit of an extreme example, but I picked a high contrast situation to illustrate my point.

It is shot wide open, and it is in fact quite sharp for f/1.8. The chromatic aberration seems to be worse than with my 35 f/1.8 or 70-200 f/2.8 (yes, 2.8 vs. 1.8 I know). Sometimes that glow makes things look unsharp. I might be asking too much from a $100 lens, but that guy's t-shirt hurts my eyes!

 

[Solarflare]

35mm doesn't equal 52mm on a DX camera. It has the same field of view as 52mm on a full-frame camera, but it will still have the distortion of a 35mm lens.

... what the frak ?

That makes no sense whatsoever.

The reason why glas for longer focal lengths usually is sharper and of higher quality is because the shorter, wider your focal length gets, the more the glas inside the lens will have to bent light, so unless you up on the tolerances and precision for your wider lenses, your wider lenses will have more errors.

However, a 35mm for APS-C can be smaller than a 53mm lens for fullframe. Thus the bending problem is the same as for the 53mm lens. Of course the lens is overall smaller, which makes twice as low tolerances necessary for the same quality as with the 53mm lens for fullframe. But the basic requirements for the lens arent harder.

And NO lens NEEDS to distort. Thats simply another variable in lens production. So a Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2 has almost no distortion (-0.18%), while the Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8G still has quite some (-1.18%):

Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2 - Review / Test Report - Analysis
Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G (FX) - Review / Test Report - Analysis

Its true that wider lenses tend to have more distortion, but that again is because they have to bent light more.