I am an ousider in this as I don't have, and likely never will have, one of these lenses. But I do have an 85mm fast lens in another system.
The use case of my 85mm is primarily as a portrait lens. I choose this FL because of the way in compresses human features in an attractive way, with no other distortion. This means that I am shooting this most often in a distance range that absolutely doesn't include MFD. I would prefer a lens in this FL to be optimzed for that distance range, not MFD. So the MFD Bank Note tests mean nothing to me.
As a portrait lens I am most often not shooting in low light enviornmants. I am likely shooting in enviornments where I can control the light. I am either using some sort of lights with modifiers, or depending on good natural light, and some sort of reflective modifiers. What this implies is that when I choose to shoot it at extremely wide aperatures, I am doing it for artistic reasons not light gathering reasons. Primarily, I am looking for a very shallow depth of field, and beautifull out of focus transitions and rendering. In such situations I could really give a sh*t about sharpness accross the entire frame. I want a sharp point of focus of my choosing, usually an eye, and a soft dreamy rendering as I move away from the point. I am creating a mood.
If I want sharp across the frame, I usually also want a decent size depth of field. That means that I will have stopped down the lens. I have seen no reviews that say that this lens is anything but extraordinary in such situations.
I see nothing in the reviews that indicate that this 85mm f/1.2 Nikon wouldn't meet all of these performance requirement at an extremely high level. Any difference between it and the best similar offering from a competative brand will have less impact on a resulting image that of the photographer making the image. Honestly, when do we ever use high end portraits straight out of camera? Editing will also have more impact than the levels of performance being discussed here.
This lens is a great addition to the Nikon Z mount ecosystem. If you shoot the kind of images this lens was designed to produce you will not find a better option among the competative brands. In this type of photography, more important than the niggles of sharpness being discussed in this thread, is the consistancy of color and rendering within the Nikon lens line itself. Nikon is maybe the industry leader in this area. It is something they pay attention to, and Nikon photographers benefit from. Focus on stuff like that which really matter to your outcomes.
Reading the tone, tenor and purposeful brand baiting of the OP's posts in this thread I don't think his reasons for posting, and my interests in learning about this lens are in alignment. He adds nothing for me. I do however feel I benefit from the comments of others in this thread.
