there has been much debate and talk about the AF improvement. some say there isnt much improvement at all. my assessment is this...the amount of improvement depends on the focussing situation. if you focus to infinity from MFD then the focus speed is slightly better. where the big difference is, and i mean HUGE, is shot to shot adjustments in af-c mode where the subject makes slight movements and you are tryign to track and keep up with limited dof. the G lens handled this marvelously. very few OOF shots and it kept up extremely well in an average lit room, so in good light its going to be outstanding.
the adjustments in focus are fast, whisper quiet and go from very good for really fast movement to instantaneous for small movements. a far cry from the slow ass screw drive annoying shitbox drive mechanisms on the existing nikon primes.
f4 1/50s iso500 sb400
note the bokeh top right is still smooth and rounded even stopped down.
this is one of the areas the 1.4D struggled. note the specular highlights are rounded and very smooth for this focal length, not hexagonal and angular. backlighting does not render the issues i used to have with the 1.4D
f1.4
B+W conversion.
f2 1/80s iso800 sb900
i paid $585 from ECS. to me this is money well spent. imo this lens is a steal. which leads me to my next question...given its not as fast in the AF stakes as say the 70-200, 14-24 et al apparently due to the fact that this is not an IF lens, (apparently this is the reason its not as fast ??), one wonders...why leave IF out ? i suspect it was to keep the cost and weight down ? well, i would happily have paid a couple of hundred more for it to be blazingly fast. you also have to wonder...if the 85/1.4 gets the same afs treatment and its not super fast BUT you have to pay $1500 for it ? well...thats starting to stretch the friendship and i dont know if they could get away with that. i'd seriously thik twice about it.
the other slightly disappointing thing is that the MFD was not improved. its still 45cm. the 35/2 is 25cm. that extra 20cm MFD is so cool to have. not sure why this could not have also been improved.
so given an amazing opportunity here to really get this SPOT ON...i think Nikon fell short of hitting one out of the park. its close, its a home run...but it should have been sailing out into the stands.
