Nikon 50mm f/1.4 Hands-On: Filling a Much-Needed Gap

Nikon makes some incredible prime lenses, from the illustrious 58mm f/.95 Noct to the 50mm f/1.2 S — the latter of which is the more practical, yet is very expensive even though it is very good. Nikon also makes a full spread of f/1.8 and f/2 prime lenses across a wide range of focal lengths. What Nikon have curiously ignored are any f/1.4 primes, at least until recently.

There are now two fast f/1.4 primes from Nikon. I hope we see even more soon.

The focusing motor quickly locked on to these birds in flight. STM motors perform just fine with smaller glass elements.

A Fast 50mm That Was Sorely Needed

Nikon just recently released an affordable 35mm f/1.4 prime which brings decent image quality to the table and a lot of light gathering potential. Now they are following it up with a 50mm version and I got my hands on an early pre-production model to try out. It’s not a reviewable copy yet but I can at least gather some thoughts and concepts about how this lens will perform upon its official release.

The transitions throughout the focus range are smooth and pleasing.

The 9-bladed aperture can clearly be seen here. The lens itself is lightweight and sparsely appointed.

The lens looks and feels quite similar to the 35mm version with a 62mm filter thread at the front and a simple plastic lens hood. Weighing only 14.8 ounces (420 grams) the 50mm is pretty sparse as far as controls go. There is a manual focus ring and a customizable control ring but that is it. The choice makes sense given the affordable price. We aren’t going to get — or need — advanced linear motors to autofocus a lens like this and I found the focusing to be plenty quick enough to handle any situation.

A 50mm is always a versatile choice that can handle portraits and street photography.

An opportunity for a detail shot and a look at the foreground bokeh too. I love shooting in industrial areas.

The Image Quality Looks Promising

In the past, f/1.4 lenses have given the shallow depth of field look and ability to use faster shutter speeds in low-light but they tended to suffer some optical compromises. As a result, I’m curious to see how this lens will handle flare and sharpness but I can make some observations about it from the samples I shot.

You can see the clean bokeh and gentle cat’s eye effect here. The 50mm f/1.4 certainly gives that shallow focus look.

Then specular highlights are fairly round when stopped down and the backgrounds look nice and smooth.

Bokeh looks very impressive which is very important when it comes to fast glass. Specular highlights look clean and free of onion rings or any soap-bubble effect. There is a pleasant cat’s eye look at f/1.4 and this cleans up to a fairly round looking circle when stopped down. I found the transitions between in focus to out of focus areas to be quite pleasant.

Here’s a flat shot at f/1.4 and the detail looks pretty decent. I definitely want to test this further.

My friend Rene stopped to say hello and became an impromptu model instead.

I endeavored to shoot a fair amount of my images at f/1.4 to get an idea of how it performs and found that the level of detail looks good. I’m going to reserve final judgement until I can put a reviewable copy against some test charts but there seems to be plenty of detail when shooting wide open and it only gets better when stopped down. I’m confident this lens will be very usable at f/1.4 and I’m eager to test further.

There is a dust seal around the lens mount but the features are pretty sparse otherwise.

I’m left wanting to see what else this lens can do but that is a testament to the design of this latest Nikon prime. I think both this and the 35mm will finally fill a gap in Nikon’s lineup and do so with aplomb.

A standard 50mm isn’t going to ever be a great macro lens but you can get fairly close to subjects.

It also makes me wonder about some other possible additions in the future. How great would it be to see a new 24mm f/1.4 or 85mm f/1.4? If Nikon keeps the pricing reasonable like they have done on the 35mm and 50mm, we could have a very popular line of prime lenses in the near future.