I have the 58 1.4 and the CV 40 1.2 and I agree with your statement of similarities between the two. I bought the CV 40 1.2 without realizing this and was pleasantly surprised that mid range portraits had a very similar look with the two lenses.
I'm stepping back into the hobby after a few years away. As part of that I decided to retire my D700 and D800 and move to a D850. I've looked at over 200 pages of this thread, and honestly it's a roller-coaster of "I WANT ONE!!" and "Hmmm... looks soft. Miss or lens?" I do travel, street, candids and what I call "texture" photography (lots of examples in this thread. It seems perfect for what I do... when it is sharp enough. I don't think I'm a pixel-peeper, but I also don't want to make excuses for a nearly $1200 lens. What I'm hoping is for a lens that sharp enough that I look at my pix and see the image I hoped to get. I don't demand the high sharpness I get from my 50 f/1.4G and 85 f/1.8G, and I see enough wide-open shots here that seem very reasonably sharp that I'd be totally happy with.
I'll do AFFT, or even send it to Nikon for calibration if necessary. I'll be thrilled for all the creamy goodness and 3-D rendering if it's decently sharp.'
Am I going to drive myself crazy?
Some examples of my shots I can imagine that with this lens would have been better:
(this are a bit old from Flickr, but haven't hosted most of my pix)
It's very much dependent on the need for visible texture of the particular subject and composition, and it varies by focus distance. Your images here are close focus - and the 58/1.4 does not have a floating lens element (FLE) system, so it will remain soft near its fairly long minimum focus distance (MFD) of 0.6 metres.
It's not a crime to use these kinds of lenses at stopped down apertures - one or two stops. You can take a series - what I call aperture bracketing - and go from there. AI:
'Shooting the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 58mm f/1.4G at f/2 and f/2.8 transitions the lens from its dreamy, wide-open artistic rendering into much crisper, high-clarity performance while retaining soft, organic background separation.'
Light fall-off in the corners begins to recede, and overall micro-contrast increases significantly. The depth of field widens just enough to make eye-and-nose focus on portraits more forgiving, while the background blur remains remarkably smooth and organic without harsh outlines.
Ideal for low-light or indoor environmental portraits where you want more pop and structure than f/1.4 provides, but still need a shallow, isolated feel.' cheers.
