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AF-S Nikkor 58/1.4 ...
#1
... for $1700. Suddenly the other new(ish) 50mm lenses - the ZA, the 1.2L - start looking like a bargain. Smile

http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/lens/sin...sample.htm

 

#2
Seems as if they are all going nuts lately.

#3
Wow, it does have nice bokeh though. So they do know how to do that. It seems nicer in this respect than the Canon 50mm f1.2 L USM. 

 

But why this lens is even more expensive, is not entirely clear to me when I look at the amount of glass in comparison:

 

Nikkor 58mm f1.4:

 

[Image: pic_004.jpg]

Canon 50mm f1.2:

 

[Image: lens-construction.png]

 

(The Canon weighs 590 grams, the Nikkor 385 grams)

#4
I think the costs are high because they need to borrow the test equipment from Sigma Smile


Nikon is blablahing something about tight and strict tolerances. Cheerfully looking forward to Sigma's new version if they ever redesign theirs.


Brightcolours, bokeh might be nice and is nice on 85/1.4G too, but the latter ones comes at the cost of massive CA an reduces the price to quality rate quite a bit. So, for the sake of all 50mm lovers, let's hope this one does a better job. Doing landscapes at open aperture is nothing to be afraid of with the 35 Sigma, too. But then using a grey filter to get decent exposure times?


@klaus: I hope no one tells Sigma what they could ask for.
#5
Quote:I think the costs are high because they need to borrow the test equipment from Sigma Smile


Nikon is blablahing something about tight and strict tolerances. Cheerfully looking forward to Sigma's new version if they ever redesign theirs.


Brightcolours, bokeh might be nice and is nice on 85/1.4G too, but the latter ones comes at the cost of massive CA
Bokeh makes or breaks a photo, LoCA has way less impact. And LoCA is easily masked.

Quote:an reduces the price to quality rate quite a bit. So, for the sake of all 50mm lovers, let's hope this one does a better job. Doing landscapes at open aperture is nothing to be afraid of with the 35 Sigma, too.
I do not like the Sigma 35mm much, because of its bokeh character. But comparing a 35mm lens to a 58mm lens, again seems a bit pointless.

Quote:But then using a grey filter to get decent exposure times?


@klaus: I hope no one tells Sigma what they could ask for.
#6
Quote:Seems as if they are all going nuts lately.
 

It's only half the price of the Zeiss Otus - definitely a bargain  Big Grin
#7
Brightcolours, go as you please by trying to put my words in a sense I never was talking about. I talked about shooting landscapes at f/1.4. I was NOT comparing 35 against 50mm


And if you're not happy with the bokeh or with the focal lengths the 35, that's a matter of taste. Not for saying "you're wrong", because there's no wrong or right in taste, but when DigitalRev TV aka Kai Wong asked the subscribers which bokeh the liked most when comparing Sigma, Nikon and Canon 35, they voted for Sigma. Whatever that means...


And for "correcting" LoCA: I'm no fan of correcting bad lenses by software as there's always a loss of quality. Plus more unnecessary work in post.
#8
Quote:Brightcolours, go as you please by trying to put my words in a sense I never was talking about. I talked about shooting landscapes at f/1.4. I was NOT comparing 35 against 50mm
You brought in the Sigma 35mm in a thread about a 58mm lens. I did not put any words into your mouth. And uhmm.. 35mm f1,4 has quite a bit smaller aperture than 58mm at f1.4. So they are not even comparable in that respect.

 

Quote:And if you're not happy with the bokeh or with the focal lengths the 35, that's a matter of taste. Not for saying "you're wrong", because there's no wrong or right in taste, but when DigitalRev TV aka Kai Wong asked the subscribers which bokeh the liked most when comparing Sigma, Nikon and Canon 35, they voted for Sigma. Whatever that means...
It means absolutely nothing, as Kai Wong only showed an image which showed highlights through a tree foliage and called it a bokeh test. Oh well. Other people say that the Nikon has nicer bokeh. Does this matter in a thread about a 58mm lens? No.

Quote:And for "correcting" LoCA: I'm no fan of correcting bad lenses by software as there's always a loss of quality. Plus more unnecessary work in post.
Nonsense, LoCA correction or LoCA masking does not mean loss of quality. Don't know how you get to that conclusion. LaCA correction even means increase of quality. 

Distortion correction does mean a loss of resolution, but we were not talking about distortion.

 

My point was that LoCA is easily maskable, but bokeh is how it is. 

#9
f/1.4 is always focal length divided by 1.4 and will result in a different aperture diameter depending on focal length, no doubt. And it will result in some problems for lenses at wide aperture, or how do you explain the price difference between Zeiss 55/1.4, Nikkor 58/1.4 and Nikkor 50/1.4? It's just the different approaches to get rid of that problems. And all I was saying is, that a Sigma 35 at open aperture is sharper and shows less CA than a 85/1.4G which is a bit hard to understand in aspects of price class.


And also no doubt that fast lenses do nearly always show the problem of CA and of color fringing. Question remains how good this 58 is in that aspect.


Then, masking of information which is in the picture needs to reduce the amount of the information in the picture and is therefore a loss of information. Maybe it's my mistake to set "information" equal to "quality". Corrected CA is better than uncorrected CA but still worse than no CA from the source, in that case the lens. If I mask the purple or green shadows of lines away, the result is less contrast because I switch off some information which was in the picture, but due to optical failures on the wrong place.


"Bokeh is how it is" - point taken, I agree and was not disagreeing on that before.


Now, let's wait until we see the first lens tests which should show if Nikon did a good job or is just asking too much money.
#10
Some marketing blurb on the Nikon USA website, under the disguise of an "interview". Still some interesting fragments of info in there, but don't expect Zeiss like openness.

 

http://imaging.nikon.com/history/scenes/33/index.htm

  


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