Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D, better than a 1.8?
During the Zoute Grand Prix I got to use the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D for the first time. Nick wrote about how good the 50mm f/1.8G is because of the good lens quality, wide open aperture and fast focus. The 1.4 AF-D is the older brother of this lens but with a wider aperture. I'm not going that technical as Nick did with his review, it's more like a personal experience.
First things first what do all these numbers and lettres mean?
50mm stands for the fixed focal length that make prime lenses so great. f/1.4 stands for the opening of your aperture, the lower your f-stop, the faster the lens is as you can read up here. An f-value of 1.4 on a 50mm means your aperture diameter is 35,7 mm because the f value represents the ratio of focal length and aperture diameter. AF-D stands for the way this lens communicates with the body. The lens gives information about the distance to subject which helps exposure and autofocus but it also means that this lens doesn't have a built-in focus motor. This is no problem if you've got a body like the D7000 I use which features a built in focus motor but on smaller (cheaper) bodies like the D3k and D5k series it means you'll have to rely on manual focussing.
50mm f/1.4 experiences
As for sharpness, the 1.4 is definitely very sharp, got some good shots with it at a wide aperture (resulting in a DOF of only a few centimeters) as wel as a small aperture. For stills it's a good lens but this is where my problem starts, at these kind of events there isn't not much like a still car. The autofocus is, because it's an old lens, quite slow. It struggles to keep up with moving objects in comparison to the 1.8G.Other than that I'd still have to rely on focussing by myself because the focus was never really on point which can be seen in some of the shots in the ZGP after movie.
I really liked the 1.4 but not as much as I hoped I would, the bokeh is amazing but... and this is probably the biggest factor when you're choosing between the 50mm 1.4 and 1.8. The 1.4 is almost double the price of what 1.8 costs and in my opinion, it's not twice as good as the 1.8 either. If you're on a budget, I'd suggest going for the 1.8G. But if you have the cash to spend or in need of more bokeh, go and buy the updated version of the 1.4 Nikon released. It has an in built focus motor and will never fail to impress.Here are some of the few pictures I made during the day, didn't manage to make a lot of them since I was filming and most of them were off focus.
