The Nikon AF-S Nikkor 58mm f/1.4G is optimized to eliminate certain optical aberrations, but its sharpness is disappointing.

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  Design minimizes sagittal coma. Even illumination across the frame. Capable of a very shallow depth of field.

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  Not that sharp at wider apertures. Some barrel distortion. No optical stabilization. Expensive.

The AF-S Nikkor 58mm f/1.4G is an unusual lens, both in terms of its slightly eccentric focal length and its optical design philosophy. It's not especially sharp for a lens that's designed to be used at large apertures, but this is offset by the excellence of its images in almost every other...

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  Produces lovely-looking images almost all the time, Very low chromatic aberration, Lower-than-usual vignetting, Minimal coma, Lovely bokeh, Generally resistant to flare, Relatively fast, near-silent autofocus, Decent construction but lightweight

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  Decidedly soft wide open, especially on DX format cameras, Relatively bulky (compared to Nikkor 50mm F1.4s), Inconsistent autofocus, Very expensive

This standard lens from Nikon costs around £1560 and sports a bright f/1.4 maximum aperture, silent focusing and nano-crystal coatings to help control ghosting and flare. The 58mm focal length is reminiscent of the old AI 'Noct' Nikkor that was designed specifically for shooting in low light with a...

Overall, the Nikon 58mm Æ’/1.4G AF-S Nikkor is a bit of a strange beast. Compared to its 50mm cousins, the 58mm Æ’/1.4G lens is very large and very expensive. And despite the very high $1,700 price tag, we found the image quality results a bit disappointing for a lens at this price point.

Perhaps I am naive but I admit when Zeiss announced their Otus 1.4/55 and Nikon – the Nikkor AF-S 58 mm f/1.4G I though we were going to deal with two lenses which were a match for each other.

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  high image quality in the frame centre from f/2.8,, very good control of the lateral chromatic aberration,, not bothersome distortion,, very good coma correction in the corners of APS-C/DX,, nice blur images,, moderate vignetting,, sensible work against bright light.

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  too much plastics in the casing for a top-of-the-range 50 mm device which is supposed to be a successor of the Noct-Nikkor,, weak image quality in the frame centre near the maximum relative aperture,, very weak image quality on the edge of the frame,, longitudinal chromatic aberration could have...

Unfortunately, those expecting a lens that will slay all comers in a battle of the test charts, may be disappointed by the seemingly 'quite good' performance of this lens. Those simply looking for the highest level of sharpness in the centre of the frame at fast apertures, will do better spending...

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  Very good sharpness in the centre at f/1.4, Excellent sharpness when stopped down, Beautifully rendered out of focus backgrounds, Good control of coma flare, Very good contrast, Silent focusing

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  Large for a standard lens, Very expensive, Not the fastest focusing lens

I was super skeptical about this lens. I owned the 50 f/1.8 for a few hundred bucks, why pay $1,300 more for 8mm more and 1/3 stop more light? It took 6-months to pull the trigger but the people who said there's just something about this lens beyond those two points (which weren't convincing), were...

WOW ! The price of this lens scared me ... and I have a 50 mm. But YOU NEED THIS LENS! What creamy dreamy shooting power it offers. Worth every penny.

A truly amazing lens, sharper than expected at 1.4, beautiful out-of-focus rendition, colours and reasonably fast and accurate autofocus. Not cheap but still a good value considering the unique quality of pictures that it produces. This is the artist of the family of Nikon lenses.

This is a stunning lens, but is not one for the beginners. This lens is to be loved and appreciated - those who claim it's soft or unusable just do not understand the rendering intent. If you want flat pictures and corner to corner sharpness but a Sigma Art whatever.

This lens is amazing for street photography and even portraits of babies and children. Although it is optimized more for pleasing images over sharpness, it is still plenty sharp. While this lens is expensive, one look at images of children makes it obvious what the money went towards.

This lens will never nail the focus for me like it's cousin, the 85mm. Tried calibrating the focus according to the chart, brought it my local Nikon service and they send it to Nikon for adjusting, but still the same.

This is the first Nikon lens I've ever been disappointed with. The chromatic aberration is terrible, even when stopped down, and no amount of AF fine tune seems to fix it. It didn't affect every shot, but it's there in at least 50% of them, and clearly visible without even zooming in to 100% It's...

Beautiful lens at a fantastic price. Check out the Nikon 58mm 1.4G Thread on FredMiranda for samples and actual user experience.

This is a wonderful lens for portraits so now I carry two cameras for portraits, one with this and the other with the 24mm 1.4.

I think Nikon had wedding and portrait photographers in mind when they created this lens. I say this because the lens's ability to create that dreamy colors and bokeh usually associated with wedding photos.