Nikon Prime

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Considering 50mm 1.4 to add to the 35/85mm combo I use already, any thoughts?
 
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35 and 85 is a nice combo, I'd stick with that on 2 bodies. Is 35 on a crop wide enough though or do you not shoot wide often?
 
not often when using wider move to a UWA generally
 
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I would see which focal length you prefer. :shrug:

Is the distance from subject substantially different between 35mm and 50mm? :shrug: Would the 85mm take you too far from your subject? :shrug:
 
A 50mm prime on the D7000 is a great lens / range. I had the D7000 with the 1.4G and it was a great combination.

But given that you have the 35mm and the 85mm I'm not sure you need it. As mentioned you could get a 50mm 1.8 D or G pretty cheap to try out what a 50mm is like on DX.

I had the 50mm 1.8D on the D7000 and it was good, I then got the 50 mm 1.4 G which was better but it's hard to say by how much.
 
If you can, borrow one for a day and shoot with it.

I find the 50mm f1.4 useful in low light situations. I have the older d version.

There should be a link in the siggy to the 50mm pictures.

Definitely worth borrowing first before buying, especially if you are getting on with the 35mm and 85mm.

Samyang I think do an 85 f1.4 which is meant to be very decent. totally manual though...
 
The first image seems to have more noticable noise than the f3.2 at 1000 ISO which seems unusual. Try the same test again with the ISO fixed to say 200.
 
If bokeh is your thing then I swapped out my 50 1.4 for the Zeiss 50/1,4. There's not much between them IQ wise but the Zeiss gives more definition to bokeh & the Zeiss is a tad more expensive and MF only. Just thought I'd mention it. If you have a group of primes then I think it's a great idea for one of them to be a Zeiss.
 
Nick, how close was you to the 'subject', it looks like a very tight shot and dof will be fairly thin. Back up a bit and shoot at a) portrait length b) against a flat subject.. that way you are looking at sharpness across the frame and not get distracted from CA.

You can test CA using a lens chart, tripod and swap the lenses and see it the CA is worser or that the focus is a bit off with one of the lenses, so you're seeing more CA where you'd expect it to be sharp and green/purple cast free.
 
The 35mm and 85mm AF-S f/1.8G lenses are great. I also have the 50mm f/1.4G and before that I had the 50mm f/1.8G. If you need a 50mm lens then the f/1.8G is the better value of the two.
 
Nick- if the first set of focus charts were taken at a reasonable angle and not dead parallel to the lens then the 2nd lens looks really horrible. Although I'm not too impressed with the first one either, '13' looks too hazy even in comparison against the second lens- the focus looks off?- you could repeat test using live view with magnification (if available) and confirm focus on the LCD
 
Standard and mid-tele primes are sharp, end of really. Any real world differences differences are minimal.

For me, 35mm isn't wide enough on a crop body but perfect on FF so I'd like the combo of 85mm and 24mm. Shame the only affordable 24mm is the old AF-D which isn't as brilliant as the newer lenses (but probably plenty good enough for the D300's 12mp).

edit: also, 35 + 50 +85 doesn't really make much sense as all you have is standard, and two mid-tele lenses. I would guess most people would want one wide, one normal, and one tele - hence their replacement by a standard zoom.
 
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I have a Nikon 24mm f2.8D and found it to be plenty sharp on my D7000, I was actually very surprised.

Its making my decision over a walkaround prime now I've upgraded to my D600 quite difficult, as I've loathed to replace it when it also works very well on full frame, but I would like a 35mm lens but the Sigma 35mm I've been trying is £680.... which is a bit steep at the moment when I'm not seeing huge differences.

Short answer I found the Nikon 24mm f2.8D a cracker on the D7000 and its very good on the D600 too, as is the 20mm f2.8D.
 
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