NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 28MM F1.4E ED
We take a look at this update to Nikon’s ultra high-speed 28mm
This model’s predecessor was notable for its single precisionground aspherical lens and owed more to the legendary manual-focus NoctNIKKOR than just about any other short prime in the line-up. Like its more famous sibling it was designed for film, where attributes like viewfinder brightness and shorter longexposure times couldn’t be worked around like they can now, with digital. Thanks to its high price, though, it didn’t sell well but became highly sought-after when discontinued. This new model has no less than three aspherical elements and does reasonably well at reducing coma, an important consideration in lowlight and astrophotography where point light sources are encountered, but doesn’t do much to reduce the overall size. It is relatively light but make no mistake, this is a big lens. Still, it balances well on big bodies such as the D850 and the autofocus motor is smooth, near silent and pretty fast. We can’t tell if it’s a ring type or micro motor – Nikon doesn’t distinguish between them. The focus ring is nicely damped but quite highly geared, making manual focusing tricky at wide apertures.
As for the optical quality, well, it’s very good, even wide open. If we’re nitpicking there’s some fringing wide open, and resolution isn’t quite as high as the equivalent ZEISS Otus centrally until it’s stopped down a couple of stops where the corners start to catch up.
That does lend some character though and its rendering or drawing style is so addictive, it’s hard to put down.