Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S Review

As single lens reflex (SLR) cameras became popular during the 1960's, the 50mm lens became known as the "normal lens". Since this time, the large aperture 50mm lens has been one of the most popular lenses for photography enthusiasts to use. And any new format has to launch this lens relatively early.

So here we have the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S. Seen here on the Nikon Z 7 mirrorless camera (left). For comparison, I have the 1980's era Nikon F3 with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AiS pancake lens (middle), released in 1980. For the fun of it, I also have the Nikon 1 J5 with the 18.5mm f/1.8 lens (right), which was Nikon's first mirrorless camera system. And as you have guessed already, the 18.5mm lens has the same field of view as a 50mm lens on a film based camera, with the 2.7x crop factor of the 1'' sensor.

In this article, I will compare the new Z lens with the classic lens from 1980. But first: Why do we have "normal lenses"?

Normal lens

Some say that a 50mm normal lens gives the same field of view as the human vision, and that is the reason why it is called a "normal lens". I'm sorry to say that this is wrong: The human vision is of course perceived subjectively for each person, but in general, the vision is way wider than that of a normal lens. At the same time, the part of the human vision which has a high resolution, that you use for reading this text, is surprisingly narrow. But the brain combines this information to give you the illusion of seeing a high resolution across a wide field of view. The bottom line is that the field of view of the 50mm lens is not like the human vision at all.

When consumer SLR cameras became popular from the 1960's, they were of course manual focus only, and to keep the price down, they had small and dim viewfinders. To be able to focus correctly, you needed to have a bright lens, a lens with a large aperture. And with the typical register distance of SLR cameras, around 45mm, the simplest lens to construct with a large aperture is around 50mm.

To create a wider lens, you need a more complex retrofocal optical design. In fact, in my market, the term "wide angle lens" is still used as a synonym for "large, fancy, expensive lens" by some persons. And a longer lens requires larger glass elements. So the easy compromise becomes the fast 50mm lens.

Hence, everybody bought a 50mm lens with their SLR camera, to get a bright, clear viewfinder image and to focus easily. It became the "normal lens".

And by the way, before the SLR era, enthusiast bought rangefinder cameras. These had a shorter register distances, and you could make 35mm lenses more easily: For these cameras, the 35mm lens was the "normal lens".

Today, virtually all cameras have autofocus, and with the more sensitive imaging sensor, you don't need a large aperture anymore. Today, the "normal lens" is the standard kit zoom lens, that all consumer cameras come with. So why is there still a market for the 50mm lens?

There are some traditionalists who enjoy using a classic prime (non zoom) lens. I suspect that those who read this review may fall into this category. Also, having a larger aperture available enables you to take pictures in low light situations.

Combined with the image stabilization and the high sensitivity sensors in the Nikon Z cameras, you can take pictures hand held in almost pitch dark environments using a lens like the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S. In addition, a large aperture gives you more control of the focus separation in the image, so that the foreground and background is more blurred.

Handling the lens

This lens is larger than the classic lens. This is typical of modern mirrorless prime lenses: A telecentric optical design is larger, but better suited for use with a digital sensor.

As you would expect from a lens marketed to enthusiast users, it has a solid metal exterior: The lens barrel and focus ring feel like they are made from aluminium. The focus ring is of course "fly by wire", in the sense that it just controls the focus drive motor, it doesn't mechanically link with the focus mechanism. It is well dampened, and has a nice, quality feel to it. Also, there is a rubber seal towards the lens mount, making the lens weather resistant. The lens bayonet mount is metal, not chromed plastic that you often see on newer kit lenses.

It is seen next to the classic Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AiS lens here, the latter mounted on a simple adapter that allows it to be used on Nikon Z mirrorless cameras. As this lens has no electronic couplings at all, it doesn't need the more advanced Nikon FTZ adapter.

The picture below shows the optical design of the two lenses compared. As you can see, the newer lens is vastly more complicated, with two aspherical lens elements (blue), and two ED glass elements (yellow). The older lens is seen to the right at the same scale.

Image quality

To compare the image quality, I have used both lenses on the Nikon Z 7 at various apertures, mounted on a tripod (click for larger images):

Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S at f/1.8	Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AiS at f/1.8

To better see the differences in image quality, here are some 100% crops from the centre and top right corner of the images (click to enlarge):

We see that in the centre, the older lens is a bit mushy wide open, but overall, the performance is quite good. In the corner, the older lens needs to be stopped down a couple of stops to show a good sharpness. The newer lens, on the other hand, performs impressively well already wide open.

As this is a low light lens, it is also good to see how the performance is with a high contrast scene (click for larger images):

Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S at f/4	Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AiS at f/4

Here are 100% crops from the centre:

Again, the older lens does show good performance already wide open. In the centre, even wide open you get a good performance from the AiS lens, considering that it is a forty year old design.

But as expected, the newest lens is really good also in this high contrast situation.

Is it a portrait lens?

People often want to use large aperture lenses for portraits, to get a nice blurred background. So can you use the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S as a portrait lens?

Traditionally, portrait lenses have often been 85mm, not 50mm. And there is a reason for that. With a 85mm lens, you can photograph a person from about 1 meter (3 feet) distance, and get the headshot with a "natural" perspective. With a 50mm lens, you have to go closer for a headshot, with gives you a distorted perspective.

The lens doesn't distort the perspective, but the distance does: People are used to looking at each other from a distance of about 1 meter or more, so going closer a human face looks "strange". Here is an illustration:

85mm at about 1 meter distance (3 feet)	50mm at about 0.6 meter distance (2 feet)

To better see the difference, watch this animation:

As you can see, the image taken closer at 50mm looks different, and if this is a person you know, it will look unnatural. However, there is nothing wrong with going for this route: You could create an image which looks a bit funky and fun this way. So don't feel like having to use 85mm for portraits just because it is a tradition.

A safer bet still is to just take a small step back and take the picture at 1 meter (3 feet) distance also with the 50mm lens. This will give you more than just the headshot. If you still want just the portrait, then simply crop out the head. The resolution is so high with modern cameras, so you can crop the image quite some and still retain a good quality image. With a distance of bout 1 meter or more, you avoid the strange perspective, even when using the 50mm lens.

50mm at about 1 meter distance (3 feet)	The same image cropped

Bokeh

Again, I took the same pictures with both lenses, at various apertures. Click on the images below to see larger versions. The images were focused at about 1 meter distance, a typical distance for a single person portrait image.

Nikkor Z 50mm at f/1.8	Nikkor Z 50mm at f/2.8	Nikkor Z 50mm at f/5.6
Nikon 50mm AiS at f/1.8	Nikon 50mm AiS at f/2.8	Nikon 50mm AiS at f/5.6

This is perhaps not the ultimate test of the bokeh, but we can see that the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S has quite smooth out of focus highlights. There is a bit of "ringing" around the out of focus highlights at wide open, but overall this is nothing to worry about. Again, this series also shows that the lens handles high contrast scenes very well.

The older lens has a problem with this high contrast scene, probably due to the lower quality anti reflective coating which was common back four decades ago. Also, the bokeh is not nearly as pleasing.

Compared with the 24-70mm f/4 kit zoom lens

It seems like many people who buy into the Z system get the Nikkor 24-70mm f/4 zoom lens, seen to the right below. And I would recommend the kits with the lens included, since the lens is actually very good.

Both lenses come with lens hoods made out of a nylon/plastic like materials, with bayonet mounts. The lens hoods are good, petal shaped, but personally I think the 50mm lens hood is a bit too wide. I think it is probably designed to be shared with, e.g., the 35mm lens, and could have been made way more narrow for better shading of light.

The 24-70mm zoom lens has a zoom ring with a rubberized surface, unlike the 50mm lens, which only has a ribbed metal focus ring.

I compared the image quality of the two lenses at 50mm focal length. The images were taken at about 1 meter (3 feet) focus distance:

Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S at f/1.8	Nikkor 24-70mm at 50mm f/4

Here are some 100% crops from the lower left corner:

As you can see, the 50mm lens is very, very sharp already wide open at f/1.8, even in the corner. It is quite unusual to see this level of sharpness wide open in the extreme corner. The 24-70mm zoom lens, on the other hand, is softer in the corner, which is expected from a zoom lens. It does sharpen up quite a bit when stopped down to f/5.6.

100% crops from the center also show a very good performance from wide open:

Conclusion

It is quite clear that the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.8 S is a high quality lens, and it shows how much better lenses have become in the last generations.

If you want one reasonably priced low light lens for the Nikon Z system, this lens could be a good compromise. While it is not a wide angle lens, and not a portrait lens, 50mm is a nice middle ground with many use cases.

Nikon is also releasing f/1.2 aperture lenses now. So are they better? If you absolutely need f/1.2, of course they are better. But apart from that, I would say probably not. The f/1.8 lenses are smaller, cheaper, and most likely better at f/1.8. And with the very good image quality at high ISO these days, f/1.8 is plenty large enough for sure.

How about the 50mm f/1.8 AiS lens from 1980? Is that a feasable lens on the Nikon Z system? The adapter needed is very inexpensive. Using focus peaking, it is pretty easy to focus correctly using this lens, at least if you are focusing on something static (not people or animals).

However, keep in mind that you are not getting any help to focus with wide open aperture. This feature has been standard on SLRs since the 1970's: The camera let's you compose and focus with the lens open, and stops down to the aperture you select when pressing the shutter. This doesn't work here: You must twist the aperture ring every time to be able to focus with the aperture open, for the best precision. I would only recommend this for people who really like using traditional, manual lenses.

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Example videos and photos

Low light video using the Nikon Z 7, 4k, f/1.8, 1/30s, ISO 8000

Picture taken with the Nikon Z 7 at f/1.8:

Picture taken with the Nikon Z 7 at f/1.8:

Picture taken with the Nikon Z 7 at f/2.8: