Nice read and love the model with the pink I hate to be the guy to call out the elephant in the room. But I find the images a tad bit soft. granted it is good for the style of photography you demonstrated in the review but for the price of the lens, I would expect nice razor sharp images. This criticism goes to most of the 58mm shots I have seen and not just yours. I believe the bokeh rendering is lovely but the lens seems on par with the 1.4G if not a tad bit softer. This is one reason I hardly owned any Nikon glass and was so invested into the Zeiss. But overall I enjoyed the read and definitely the models Thanks for sharing.
Jorge Torralba wrote:
Nice read and love the model with the pink I hate to be the guy to call out the elephant in the room. But I find the images a tad bit soft. granted it is good for the style of photography you demonstrated in the review but for the price of the lens, I would expect nice razor sharp images. This criticism goes to most of the 58mm shots I have seen and not just yours. I believe the bokeh rendering is lovely but the lens seems on par with the 1.4G if not a tad bit softer. This is one reason I hardly owned any Nikon glass and was so invested into the Zeiss. But overall I enjoyed the read and definitely the models Thanks for sharing....Show more →
Compared to reasonable competition*, the Zeiss 1.4/50 is the last lens I'd own- I'd much rather have the 58G for the far lower vignetting and the extremely well corrected CA.
*50/1.2L on 5D III, 1.4/50 ZF.2 and 58G on D600, all selected for their 'rendering'
Jorge Torralba wrote:
Nice read and love the model with the pink I hate to be the guy to call out the elephant in the room. But I find the images a tad bit soft. granted it is good for the style of photography you demonstrated in the review but for the price of the lens, I would expect nice razor sharp images. This criticism goes to most of the 58mm shots I have seen and not just yours. I believe the bokeh rendering is lovely but the lens seems on par with the 1.4G if not a tad bit softer. This is one reason I hardly owned any Nikon glass and was so invested into the Zeiss. But overall I enjoyed the read and definitely the models Thanks for sharing....Show more →
a tad bit expensive... coming from the Otus guy... that's funny
The softness issue has been beaten to death... wide open... it is not as razor sharp as some would want. I felt the same way when I first started looking at images produced by the lens. I bought here on FM, for a decent discount, to see what the hype was all about. I have fallen in love with it... I took it to Nikon right after I got it to have it checked for AF accuracy, and now find it sharp enough even wide open. The allure of the lens is the "look"... not clinical sharpness, at least that's what I think.
I really like the Nikon 58 mm lens, it is a fantastic lens and shooting it wide-open is really nice. However I don't use it nearly as much as I do my 85 mm F/1.4 G because I like the focal length of the 85 mm much better. I guess if I was going to do some street photography or some landscape photography, then I would go for the 58 mm, but for general shooting I prefer the 85... Plus I really enjoy and love looking at all that glass in the front of the 85. So much resolution can be obtained from that lens. However they are both extremely nice and I am longing for the opportunity to photograph some portraits with the 58 mm. Similar to what was seen on this post, waist up and environmental portraits.
@Jorge Torralba: Thanks for the feedback! I agree what was said earlier by the others...you don't buy this lens for sharpness...you buy it for its look, for how it renders the world
@Todd: I used to the love the 85mm focal length a lot, but have since shifted over to the 58mm because it allows me to draw in closer for images that connect to me better. Regardless, both the 85 and 58 are indeed fantastic pieces of glass! :
Has anyone done any serious head-to-head tests of this Nikkor 58mm and the Otus 55mm? I know they are priced significantly different and all that. I'm just wondering how close they compare? Anyone know of such a test?
Damianshaw wrote:
Has anyone done any serious head-to-head tests of this Nikkor 58mm and the Otus 55mm? I know they are priced significantly different and all that. I'm just wondering how close they compare? Anyone know of such a test?
The Otus is sharp and perfectly corrected wide-open except for vignetting, and the 58G is sharp enough and has AF?
Here are two quick snaps from tonight... @ 1.4 on the D4S. Slightly cropped. Not razor sharp... but really melts the background incredibly well for a 50ish MM lens.
Awesome review. Loved the shots so much I missed a few paragraphs and had to go back.
I've always lusted after the NOCT, so this is likely my next lens. I'm very content with my current kit and already have ~50 well covered with the 50 1.4G, 50 1.2AIS and 24-70, so there is no rush. I'm going to wait a bit so I have a few used copies as an option. Hopefully a few looking for "critical" sharpness will miss the memo and end up dumping them in the next year.
I hate to be the guy to call out the elephant in the room. But I find the images a tad bit soft. granted it is good for the style of photography you demonstrated in the review but for the price of the lens, I would expect nice razor sharp images. This criticism goes to most of the 58mm shots I have seen and not just yours. I believe the bokeh rendering is lovely but the lens seems on par with the 1.4G if not a tad bit softer. This is one reason I hardly owned any Nikon glass and was so invested into the Zeiss. But overall I enjoyed the read and definitely the models 
