Leave the M/A — M switch in M/A. In M/A, you get autofocus, and if you want manual focus, just grab the ring at any time.

Supplied Accessories: 58mm Snap-on Front Lens Cap LC-58, Rear Lens Cap LF-4, Bayonet Hood HB-47, Flexible Lens Pouch CL-1013Any coma is minimal at worst, better than the earlier 50mm f/1.8 lenses. I expected this from the aspherical design. Focus accuracy and repeatability is critical to consistently produce sharp shots. Repeatability (the accuracy of focus on the same subject after repeated focus-acquisition) of the Nikon Z 40mm f2.0 is fair (measured 95.3% in Reikan FoCal) but produced no outliers over a series of 40 shots. There is a bit of focus variation whether the lens focuses from a closer distance or from infinity and I had some cases where the lens refused to focus at all when coming from minimum object distance. The lens focuses in around 0.3 sec on a Nikon Z7 from infinity to 0.46m (1:10 magnification), which is very fast. Living up to its reputation and price tag, the Milvus delivers gorgeous image quality. Wide-open, it combines superb contrast and stellar sharpness across almost the entire frame. The newer f/1.8 50mm lenses are as sharp, and have none of the barrel distortion of these earlier f/2 lenses. This is Nikon's first aspherical 50mm lens. Nikon's only other aspherical normal lens is the 58mm f/1.2 Noct-NIKKOR, which sells used for thousands of dollars.

The improved multi-coating of the 50mm f/1.8G has also boosted performance, adding a good level of contrast compared to past lenses. This has helped to increase image definition, again, particularly when one is shooting at f/1.8. Nikon DSLR users wanting a nicely priced standard prime could do worse than go for the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G. It proved a capable optical performer turning in images with good contrast, reduced chromatic aberrations and high sharpness. It handles well too with the lens’ Silent Wave Motor delivering fast, very quiet autofocusing.

The pre-AI lenses don't mount to modern Nikons. Get the AI version so it will mount to everything. You need either the AI version, of have an older one AI converted to work on a D300 or D3. See Nikon Lens Compatibility for more. As you can see, the 50mm f/1.8 AF-D is both smaller and thinner in size and has an aperture ring. Please note that the older 50mm f/1.8D does not have a rubber gasket on the metal mount, so the new Nikon 50mm f/1.8G is better sealed against dust. The Nikon 50mm f/1.8 G AF-S is solid, inexpensive and well made (by current standards that accept made-in-China plastic), and it's a great performer. If you don't already have something similar, everyone deserves one of these. Apertures from f/2.8 to f/22 can be set with the lens not in macro focus distance range. At 1:1 that can push the smallest aperture down to f/32 due to the lens extension. The aperture blades form a 9-blade (mostly) rounded opening. As with a number of lower cost Nikkors, my sample had a tendency towards "pointedness" in one part of the stopped down opening.

The following images were taken with the Nikon AF-S 50/1.8G. Each image was recorded in RAW and converted with Capture NX 2 at standard settings. Some images have White Balance set to a standard daylight value to make them comparable. No extra sharpening, or tone-, color-, saturation-adjustment was used.

Studio Tests - FX format

You're really pushing it with the oldest AF cameras like the N2020, N6006 and N8008. You'll have no AF and very confused exposure modes. Manual focus is fine, along with electronic focus indications. With its effective focal length of 85mm, the Panasonic is ideal for portraiture and the f/1.7 aperture enables a fairly tight depth of field. It’s well-engineered and features an optical image stabilizer. Externally, the Z 50mm is noticeably bigger and heavier than a good old F-mount Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8G, but compared with some F-mount 50mm alternatives from Sigma and Tokina, it’s pleasingly portable. There's beautiful bokeh, and the lens maintains a lovely smoothness in defocused areas when stopping down a little. Colour fringing is almost a complete non-issue with this lens, even in the corners. Lateral CA is extremely low, with almost no visible fringing. As on DX, the measured CA in the centre of the frame at F1.4 reveals a degree of color-specific spherical aberration, but rather lower than the old 'D' lens

There’s a lot to love about this lens. It’s refreshingly compact and lightweight, making it a good travel companion for a full-frame Z-series body, while also working really well as a short telephoto prime for DX format (APS-C) Z-series cameras, where it has an effective focal length of 75mm. It’s entirely capable as a 50mm standard prime for general shooting but really comes into its own for extreme close-ups. The only catch is that, to enable full 1.0x macro magnification, the closeness of the shooting distance might be a little too extreme, with only 2 inches between the front of the lens and what you’re shooting. Canon’s 25-year-old 50mm f/1.4 lens might seem the obvious choice, but we prefer this newer option. It’s two-thirds of an f/stop slower, but is less than a third of the price, is much lighter and has better performance. The "M/A" position means autofocus. It's called "M/A" because you also can focus manually simply by grabbing the focus ring in this position. It's also perfect on decent or recent AF film cameras like the F6, F100, F5, N80 and N75. I tried it on my Nikon F4, and it works great, although there's no way to set a manual aperture as explained below.The rubber ring is grippy so it can be moved with a single fingertip, although the mechanics are stiffer than real Nikon Manual-Focus lenses. One downside is the rather uninspiring maximum aperture of f/3.5-5.6. This is part and parcel of keeping the lens to a sensible weight and cost, but all the same, those who want to create striking shallow depth of field or beautiful bokeh will want to look elsewhere.