Introduction

Interestingly out of the big camera manufacturers of the (D)SLR era only Nikon ever produced a 28mm 1.4 fullframe lens. They started in 1993 with the world’s first lens with these specifications, the Nikon AF 28mm 1.4D, and then released an updated version in 2017, this Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E. It was one of their last f/1.4 primes still designed for DSLRs, so let us find out what it is capable of in this review.

Sample Images

You can find many of the sample images in full resolution here.

Specifications / Version History

There have been two different Nikon 28mm 1.4 lenses so far:

• Nikon AF 28mm 1.4D
  520g, 11/8 design, 72mm filter, 1 aspherical element, MFD 0.35 m, D-type, 1993-2005
• Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E
  646g, 14/11 design, 77mm filter, 3 aspherical elements, MFD 0.28 m, E-type, 2017-

This is a review of the later Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E, its full specifications are:

• • Diameter: 82 mm
  • Field of view: 75.4° (diagonally)
  • Length: 100 mm
  • Weight: 646g (without hood, without caps)
  • Filter Diameter: 77 mm
  • Number of Aperture Blades: 9 (rounded)
  • Elements/Groups: 14/11
    
  • Close Focusing Distance: 0.28 m
  • Maximum Magnification: 1:5.5 (measured)
  • Mount: Nikon F

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Disclosure

This Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E was kindly provided free of charge by one of our readers for review purposes. Thanks a lot!

Some time later I decided to buy a sample for myself, so you see pictures taken with two different samples in this review.

Handling/Build quality

This Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E is part of  Nikon’s higher end f/1.4 line up together with the 24mm 1.4G, 35mm 1.4G, 58mm 1.4G, 85mm 1.4G and 105mm 1.4E.

The outer casing seems to be mostly made from high quality polycarbonate which is also true for the filter thread. There is a rubber gasket to be found at the bayonet.

The focus ring features a mechanical coupling to the helicoid (no focus by wire) and it takes about 160° from the minimum focus distance (0.28 m) to infinity.
The resistance is okay, not as nice as a real manual lens or some of Sigma’s better lenses.
Many Nikon AF-S G-lenses show some slack when changing the direction of rotation on the focus ring, luckily this is not the case here, so the lens can be focused precisely in manual mode.

A plasticky bayonet type lens hood it also part of the package. It can be mounted reversed for transport.

This Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E is a big and bulky lens. It is bigger than the Nikon AF-S 24mm 1.4G and noticeably bigger than its predecessor, the Nikon AF-D 28mm 1.4. The Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art is similar in size.

Being an “E” lens – which means the aperture diaphragm is controlled electronically – you need a fancier adapter to be able to change the aperture value when using this lens on an E-mount camera. I tried the Commlite adapter in the past and that has been an awful experience. I can recommend the Monster LA-FE1 and LA-FE2 adapters though.

If you are a Z-mount user this lens works like a native one via the FTZ adapters.

AF performance

I tested the AF via the FTZ II adapter on a Nikon Zf which worked flawlessly. The f/1.4 primes are not as fast focusing as the f/2.8 zooms though.

I also used this lens with the Monster LA-FE adapters on Sony E-mount cameras. Here the AF worked surprisingly well – much better than I would have expected.

Vignetting

light falloff

In this category lenses designed for (D)SLRs actually have a potential benefit over those designed for rangefinder/mirrorless cameras: the long back focus distance can lead to light rays coming from the rear element hitting the sensor at less acute angles. This Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E, the Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art and the Nikon AF-D 28mm 1.4 all show very similar vignetting figures.

It is recommended to have a look at this article first to get an idea how this brightness graph works.

optical vignetting

Fast lenses usually show a noticeable amount of optical vignetting. Without going too much into technical details optical vignetting leads to the truncation of light circles towards the borders of the frame.
In the center of the frame almost every lens will render a perfect circle, but only lenses with very low optical vignetting will keep this shape in the corners.
So in the following comparison we move from the center (left) to the extreme corner (right) and see how the shape of the light circle changes.

I did shoot all three lenses side by side, they were set to 0.5 m and with focusing at a target situated at exactly 0.5 m distance from camera it was ensured the focus distance is actually the same, so the size of the circles is directly comparable.

Also here I don’t see particularly big differences. The Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E and the Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art show very similar amounts of optical vignetting, but I do see the Sigma slightly ahead, as the Nikon’s out of focus highlights off center look a bit more like lemons with a bit of light spill at the ends.

All these lenses make use of aspherical elements and all can show onion ring structures in out of focus highlights.

Sharpness

MTF-Graphs

The MTF graphs of this Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E do actually look really good. Very high contrast and resolution over most of the frame and almost perfectly corrected astigmatism. These graphs look so much better than those of the Nikon AF-D 28mm 1.4. Let’s see if the performance in the field is really this good.

Most MTF-Graphs show calculated values that do not take into account manufacturing tolerances and sample variation. Furthermore they are usually calculated for infinity, so in the field and shooting at different distances a noticeable variation may be visible.

Thanks to Lensrentals.com we have some data of actual lenses though and I thought it might be a good idea to compare these graphs to those of the Nikon AF-S 24mm 1.4G from 2010 and the Sony FE 24mm 1.4 GM which was released in 2018:

We see a few interesting things here. First thing: Nikon’s calculated graphs look very similar to Lensrental’s measurements.

Furthermore the Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E (released in 2017) does not only show better performance than the Nikon AF-S 24mm 1.4G (released in 2010) – that was to be expected – but also a better performance than the designed-for-mirrorless Sony FE 24mm 1.4 GM (released in 2018), which is very impressive.

Focus Shift

With some lenses on stopping down the focal plane shifts to the front or back, which can be an issue on (D)SLRS. Here I do not see any focus shift.

infinity (42mp Sony A7rII, 24mp Nikon Zf)

The correct flange focal distance is crucial for the performance of lenses with a floating elements design like this and the thicker filter stack of the Sony cameras may also have a negative effect. Being an “E” lens, I had to use the Monster LA-FE2 adapter to be able to change its aperture for taking these shots but I found its length to be a little bit too short, which is why I am also showing you how the lens performs on the Nikon Zf via Nikon’s own FTZ II adapter.

On the Nikon Zf I hardly see a midzone dip, only the corners are slightly softer at wider apertures. This generally fits what is shown in the MTF graphs.

On the Sony A7rII, center and corners look the same as on the Nikon Zf, but the midzone dip is much more pronounced, most likely due to the Monster adapter being a little bit too short.

portrait distance (0.9 m, 24mp Sony A7III)

For portraiture it isn’t so important how flat the field is, it is more interesting to see what the sharpness is like when focused at different parts of the frame to take field curvature out of the equation.

This is what I did here, I refocused for every shot and aperture to get the best possible result at different locations in the frame (center, inner midframe and outer midframe).
Focus distance was roughly 0.9 m and the circle of the dollar bill is more or less the size of a human eye.

f/1.4 <————> f/2.0

There is nothing I could possible complain about here, the Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E is doing a very good job here. In the center and inner midframe it is as good as the Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art, in the outer midframe maybe slightly better.

close (0.28 m, 1:5.5, 42mp Sony A7rII)

The Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E does not as high a magnification as the Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art, but it does come close and also gives a clearer picture at f/1.4. From f/2.0 there is little difference between those two lenses here.

Flare resistance

As always evaluating flare is a complex matter since you can get any lens to look bad if you push it hard enough and a slight change of scenario can affect results a lot.

Because of how this lens works on the Monster LA-FE2 adapter it is noticeably more difficult for me to evaluate the performance in this category.

From everything I have seen I will still go as far as to say this has been the best performer in this category out of all the fast 28mm I tried so far, as this veiling flare with the sun close to the corner of the frame is the worst I can show you here:

Coma

This is another category where the Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E is beaten by the Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art – not by a lot though. This Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E is one of the few fast wide angle lenses where I wouldn’t mind taking a picture of a blue hour city scene at f/1.4.

Distortion

The distortion of the Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4 E is low, but slightly wavy. A correction profile in Lightroom is available that does a very good job at correcting it.

Bokeh

As usual we will have a look how the lens performs at different distances and in different scenarios.

You can find more scenes and also comparisons to other fast 28mm lenses here.

Close distance

The short minimum focus distance of 0.28 m definitely helps creating a thin DoF here. Thanks to the floating elements design sharpness and contrast are also very good at these distances.

Mid distance

Mid distances are what I like to use lenses like this for the most, because you can show a person but also its slightly out of focus surroundings (see: How to: Create Environmental Portraits).

Long distance

Some fast 28mm lenses (Laowa 28mm 1.2 Argus, Voigtländer VM 28mm 1.5 Nokton) struggle a bit at longer distances. The Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E does not have any of these issues and creates a pleasing bokeh regardless of focus distance.

As said before I compared the bokeh rendering of six different fast 28mm lenses and this Nikon was one of those that looked the best to me.

Sunstars

When it comes to 9 rounded aperture blades I have already seen good and bad sunstars from Nikon. Their later F-mount lenses (and this 28mm is one of the latest F-mount lenses) often do pretty good though and that is clearly the case here as we see well defined sunstars from f/4.0 to f/16.
If you want to learn more about this topic have a look at this article.

Chromatic aberration

lateral

Unlike its predecessor the Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E does feature two ED elements, but lateral CA are still on a medium level. Luckily on digital lateral CA are easily corrected in post by just one click.

This Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E was the last higher end f/1.4 lens that had been released by Nikon for the F-mount and in my opinion it is also the best of them. For most aberrations it is better corrected than both, the 24mm 1.4G and the 35mm 1.4G, and also has visibly higher resolution (don’t just take my word for it, also have a look at this comparison conducted by lensrentals).

This lens was also included in my comparison of fast 28mm lenses. If you have a look at it, you will notice that it fares well in most categories, but also that the Sigma 28mm 1.4 Art is a very strong competitor and slightly better in some categories (sharpness, CA correction, Coma correction). Where the Nikon stands out is flare resistance though, the only category where the Sigma showed a rather noticeable slip-up.

We still haven’t seen a 28mm 1.4 lens from one of the major manufacturers for their mirrorless mounts, the Laowa 28mm 1.2 and the Viltrox 28mm 1.8 AF show, that fast 28mm lenses designed for mirrorless cameras from scratch can be noticeably smaller though.

Until then, this is the most well rounded fast 28mm lens to me – that is, if you are using Nikon F or Z cameras.

buy from Amazon.de | B&H | ebay.com (affiliate links) for $1.799 (new) or $1.000 (used)

Sample Images

You can find many of the sample images in full resolution here.

Further Reading

• Guide to 20-28mm wide angle lenses for Sony FE cameras
• Review: Nikon AF-S 20mm 1.8G
• Review: Sigma 35mm 1.2 Art DG DN
• Lens aberrations explained
• Technical Knowledge

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BastianK

My name is Bastian and I am your expert here when it comes to ultra wide angle lenses, super fast portrait lenses (ranging from a 50mm f/0.95 to a 200mm f/1.8) and I also have reviewed way too many 35mm lenses. Don't ask me anything about macro or wildlife shooting though.

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