Kaustabh Duorah
> After perusing this newsgroup and the marketplace newsgroup, the
> variation of 50mm nikkor lens prices have left me totally confused.
> For one, I know there are several 50mm lense (f1.2, f1.4, f1.8 and f2)
> available as well as the series E 1.8, which has had mixed
> reviews.
>
> What confuses me is the range of prices I see asked for the 50mms.
> I have seen prices from $40 up to about $175 asked. Is there a vast
> difference in lens quality. The earlier f1.4's were supposed to be
> quite bad but maybe there are recent ones which are really good. A lot
> of 50mm's used to come standard with body some time back. Were these
> lenses worse than others?
You may want to check out my "SUBJECTIVE Lens Evaluations
(Mostly Nikkors)" on my web page (under "I babble") - it lists all
the Nikkor optical types, and evaluates many (including all the
Nikkor 50mm lenses). The short answer is that all of the Nikkor
normals (assuming good samples) are excellent by about f4,
and some are excellent by f2 (or even wider, under some
conditions...;-). And the cheap 50mm's can be real bargain
lenses (fast, sharp, small, light, low-distortion, and inexpensive).
Hope This Helps
David Ruether - http://www.fcinet.com/ruether