GiovanniAprea
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Kry27 wrote:
Thanks again for the additional shot (which I prefer).
To be honest: I seldom shoot / shot this lens wide open, the longer I have it, the less. Let me explain:
- I shot it mostly on my D3. As stated often, I could shoot a long time only with this camera and a 2 lens setup, this AF 85/1.4D and the AF 28/1.4D that complement each other nicely.
- The bokeh, background blur, is wonderful at f/1.4, and there are situations where one does not (or hardly) sacrifice anything when shooting wide open - full body shots, so just from a little further away, come to my mind.
- Viewing the images while post processing I found out that the elder AF (or maybe my D3?) was OK, but not great - and missing critical focus at f/1.4 means the picture has to go to the bin.
- When starting to use a D750 as well, these cases became even more obvious, as the camera can show the difference of a "perfect hit" and a "near hit" even better (don't speak of the D850 I don't have).
- When you need the light, you need the light, of course - something the more modern camera is also better at (ISO)
I came to this conclusions:
- Most often I prefer it being shot at f/2.2, f/2.5 as widest setting
- This is even more important, the closer the subject is, of course
- Sharpness improves a lot
- Backgrounds are STILL beautiful
- The images of course look differently, but still great.
I don't have the f/1.8 lens for a direct comparison at let's say f/4, but I'm sure one can find such a thing online.
Finally:
A great lens, a great lens at f/1.4, and also stopped down. Great not by the means of modern 1.4 primes, but for it's history, character and rendering. Enjoy your's and take time to learn it in and out.
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Ciao Try,
the 85/1.4D was a long time dream lens of mine, if I could I'd like to add the 58/1.4 and a 35 which I have never had but this has not much to do with the above, as a matter of fact I am an amateur photographer (whoever holds a camera has become a photographer so I can apply that rule to myself), I make no money out of it and I like to experiment, of course aperture affects the result depending on many circumstances, in my case not being the eyes facing me of course the further one would be out of focus but won't change much till stopped down to f3ish or harrower so, as you can tell from the two shots above, I did of course try different apertures (and surprisingly the subject could throw the same exact smile each and every time) and I mostly concentrated on how the aperture affects the background rather than the subject, I know that at those close distances it is hard to keep it all in decent focus but I am experimenting to find out what's the sweet spot for my kind of shooting and the road is fun to walk through.
with regards to focus, obviously, f1.4 is a challenge for whatever AF system, my D850 was struggling a few days ago with a friend, I asked him to pull his glassed further down on his nose and try to focus on the eyes, dunno if light blue eyes not having enough contrast but camera kept focusing on glasses frame, no glasses focus spot on... it is just fun to experiment, I know that I stop down to f4-5.6 and it comes nicely in focus, nose, eyes, ears...
Till last year I took a series of causal shots of people, D800 and 85/1.8G, distance I'd say a couple meters from a eye point of view or higher, found out that the sweet spot to have an acceptable DOF was in the f2.8-3.2 range (shots on my Flickr account) so I know that 1.8 or 1.4 won't work off those distances even tho the subject is facing straight towards the camera.
It is undeniable the background blur difference between f1.4 and, say, f2.x as in the above shots, it depends on what one wants to obtain, sharpness isn't everything, I bought the D lens being aware it's not the sharpest thing around but it does great for what it was supposed to do, now attention shifted on sharpness but, to me, that's not everything.
Thanks for commenting, always interesting to read other's points of view and to learn from other's experience.
Best
Giovanni
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. Happy shooting!
I love animals but, imagine, our dog is scared off the camera, so fun, when she sees me pointing the lens at her she hides or escapes if we are around, I guess she is afraid of the shutter noise (that's why I will have to get a mirrorless camera), she is afraid of whatever any kind of noise...
that was pretty much me, plus the look with that metal hood = I was getting that lens 
