Nikon 50mm 1.4E ???

PeachBlack

Man... near perfect optics, great out of focus areas, excellent colors, amazing sharpness, and superb control of chromatic aberration. Sterility! Sterility! Sterility!!!!!

Ironheart

@PeachBlack is an example of someone who wants a near perfect lens and is willing to "pay" for it with a lens that is almost 3x size, cost, and weight of the f/1.4D Nikkor.

I'm on the opposite side of that. My favorite 50mm is the non-Nikkor Nikon Series E f/1.8. Weighs 5-1/2 oz (156g) is 1" long, and cost me $50 on ebay:


The point being, not all 50s are created equal, and that's a good thing

NSXTypeR

WestEndPhoto, while I understand brand loyalty from an enthusiast's perspective, I'm not a staunch brand loyalist. All the lenses I own happen to be Nikkor, but I wouldn''t be afraid to switch to a different brand if they clearly offer advantages. Your argument would be equivalent to sticking with a particular brand of tires just because the original car company shipped the car with it. That's like saying you're going to buy Bridgestone all season tires for an Accord sedan forever, even though you're probably going to enjoy it more if you bought summer high performance tires like the Michelin Sport Cup 2 on it if you live in the desert and it never rains.

Nikon clearly is either too stupid or too busy with all the earthquakes to care about DX to put out a fast wide prime. If I had the money, I'd pick up the 18-35mm 1.8 zoom.

Ironheart- while that Nikon E lens was never branded a Nikkor, I'm fairly certain it was still made by Nikon, so for all intents and purposes, it's a Nikkor to me.

PeachBlack

@Ironheart: I appreciate the point you are trying to make and I completely agree with you. If your concern is weight, then the Art lenses certainly is not for you. Nobody was really arguing the point. The foundation of the thread was laid with the undeniable observation that Nikon was losing badly to Sigma in terms of image quality.

My arguments can be summed with this very simple claim: If the Sigma Art lenses had been created by Nikon and been identical in **every** way except the branding, practically everyone on this board, including me, would be hailing this as a new Nikon renaissance. Hooray! Nikon is providing near-Zeiss quality at Nikon prices! What an amazing company! We love Nikon! We love Nikon! Rah! Rah! Rah!

snakebunk

The Art lenses are designed with the main goal to prioritize optical perfection over size. No reason to hate, just a clear declaration of what to expect.

I don't use optical imperfections as a tool, so I can't comment on those qualities. Rather a sterile lense gives me most options in post production. Like an Art lense or maybe the very sterile Nikon 800/5.6E .

Thank you for an interesting discussion!

WestEndFoto

I think it is fun to have both a sterile lens (eg. my 14-24 2.8) and use optical imperfections as a tool (eg. my 15 3.5 AIS). Which one I use depends on the mood I am in. My favorite optically imperfect lens is my 50 1.2 AIS wide open. My favorite sterile lens is my 28 2.8 AIS or maybe my 135 DC 2.0 (dated, lovely bokeh, but sterile). One can go both ways.

CirenSnapper

As someone who has only been pursuing photography for four or five years this is really interesting discussion. I have no loyalty at all to any brand. I use a number of cameras but my 810 is the one I rate highest. In lenses I have Nikon, Zeiss and Sigma. The two comments above that resonate most are Snakebunk's comment on using the lens that gives you the best possible starting point to allow you to create and perfect your vision and PeachBlack's comment on how things might be if the boot was on the other foot and Nikon was producing the Art line lenses.

On the latter, I have noticed that Sigma gets a lot of "I would not touch their products with barge pole" type comments on various photo forums still. This may be a product of previous failings but the current evidence is that Sigma are producing utterly superb (sharp, super ca control etc) lenses at prices that are incredibly competitive and they are thinking about their consumers (mount change over, dock tuning). Each to his own, but I think this has to be encouraged: providing real competition to Nikon and Zeiss is good. Zeiss pushing the envelope with Otus is good. Sigma challenging them on optical quality for a third of the price or less is utterly amazing and deserves credit. At 50mm (and 35 for that matter), the Art is simply the best there is IMO. It exudes many optical qualities that are also to be found on the new Nikon 105 and which are getting praised to the hilt. So why not give Sigma some rousing credit where it is due?

PeachBlack

The previous Sigma primes, their 50 and 85, were pretty good lenses—if you got a good one. They were definitely above average. The 85 wasn't as good as the 85/1.4g, but it was a lot cheaper. The previous 50 is still better than anything Nikon is producing, and used to be the recommended lens in the focal range by Dx0.

That being said, they were utterly plagued by quality control problems. When I shot Canon I had an excellent copy of the 50/1.4 and had no complaints, but I was lucky. I had three 85s and sent all of them back. The first one made grinding sounds as it tried to focus, the second one back focused so much that I couldn't even correct it enough, and the final one just didn't seem to nail focus enough for me to trust it.

So when the 35 Art came out, I was suspicious. The reviews, however, were starting to trickle in and everyone who used it was absolutely astounded by it. Well, I bought one because I didn't have anything in the focal range yet for Nikon and *instantly* well in love. It's just an astoundingly good lens. Then the 50 came out and it was even better. Seriously, anyone not giving these lenses a look is doing themselves a disservice.

This was shot with the 50mm/1.4 Art earlier this afternoon with a model from Ford: