This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Disclaimer: My photography is in weddings and general day to day shooting. I do not shoot night skies, or point sources of light at night, which this lens is believed to be made for as the new Noct f/1.2.
To summarize, this new 58mm f/1.4 feels very much like a mini 85mm f/1.4G which is lighter, not as sharp and slightly more expensive. It's hazy soft at f/1.4, acceptable at f/2.0 and sharp at f/4.0. Its sharpness characteristic is very similar to the 50mm f/1.4G, but it has very nice soft rendering of colors and out of focus areas at f/1.4 unlike the 50mm. If you need a shorter focal length than 85mm, yet you want to keep the nice colors and bokeh, and doesnt mind about the price, this lens might be for you.
It feels noticeably lighter, has a weird 72mm filter thread and a relatively expensive price tag. AF is slow, just like the 50mm and the 85mm, presumably to try to get perfect focus at such shallow depth of field. I actually like the focal length, it's not as close in as the 85mm and not as wide as 35mm or 50mm, this can be a nice focal length for certain portraits. I tested it on a D800E, after AF fine tuning and constantly use images taken with live view as a benchmark for sharpness to avoid any AF errors from the camera body. If the lens is this unsharp at f/1.4, I personally do not see the need for Nikon to make this a f/1.2, as it will just get worse. However, I can imagine many might find the softness perfect for portraits. There's no doubt buyers have many choices at this price point: the 50mm 1.8 1.4 85mm 1.4 1.8 or even the sigma 50mm.
