Peter Mueller wrote:
I agree. I had the 50mm f/1.8D for a long time and when it stopped properly focusing to infinity I replaced it with the 1.8G for the reasons outlined above. I am very happy with the lens and think it is actually better than the 50mm f/1.4G.
I just bought the 50 F1.8 G. I had the opportunity to test it a few times from a friend who has one. I had flare steaks from the 50 F1.8 AFD, so I sold it.
By now I have purchased the 85mm f/1.8G and I am not at all disappointed. A very nice lens, quite sharp wide open, nice bokeh and actually pretty flare resistant. So both the 50 1.8 and the 85 1.8 are absolute winners for me; let's see how the 28 1.8 will fare.
As long as we are talking lenses: I just bough a used 200mm f/2. Boy what a nice lens!
I picked up the 85G on Friday. My initial reaction was disappointment with wide open performance since I had a large number of soft shots -- which turned out to be focus misses. Setting the AF fine tune to +10 seems to have made things better.
All things considered, I'd rather not have to enter a tuning value, but I guess that's why it's there. It may still be a deal breaker though as I use a D200 too. If it misses focus on that body, back it goes.
EDIT: Lens failed on the D200 at large apertures (front focus). Damn I was hoping not to play the lens lottery with this one.
I posted earlier that my copy behaved badly on my D200. Turns out it was operator error. I set up a chart, did remote release, M-Up on a tripod and I found that the 85's wide open focus is pretty darn close on the D200 and that most of the front focus issues reside in the (correctable) D300.
the bricks are sharper than the face 
Just sayin'...