bbradford Loc: Wake Forest NC

Greetings all. Need your advice. Have a chance to purchase a prime Nikon 50mm 1.8 af-d lens for $ 80.00 in excellent condition for $ 80.00. Any thoughts on price would be appreciated.

steve03 Loc: long Lsland

I have this lens and that sounds like a great value. check if af is compatible with your camera.
The 5000 series only works manually with "d" lens

LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America

Buy it.

bbradford Loc: Wake Forest NC

I checked and it does thanks. Does this have a fixed aperture? Thanks Bryan

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Great lens and an attractive price.

BebuLamar

It's not a zoom lens and it's not a macro lens so the aperture stays where it is set.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

That would be a good buy.

LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America

The NIKKOR 50 1.8 is arguably the sharpest lens on the market.

It’s focal length limits it and there are faster lenses available, but it’s quality is astounding.

It is also very light weight and through the use of “sneaker zoom” it is quite usable.

True it’s not a macro, but it will focus fairly close and works well with tubes or reversing rings.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

It sounds as if you've checked, but just to confirm....

An AF-D lens will be manual focus only on D3000/D5000-series and some earlier models.

That lens doesn't have a built-in focusing motor, so can only autofocus on camera models that have the in-body focus drive motor ("screwdriver"), such as D7000-series and higher.

The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D sells new for just over $130 and sells used in stores (probably w/90 day warranty) for up to around $90, depending upon condition.

https://kenrockwell.com/nikon/5018daf.htm

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

And MF only on the new Z cameras as well if trying to future proof. But outside of that I used one several times of a friend and it was excellent and worth the asking price for the quality.

ed2056 Loc: Warwick, RI

I have 2 of these lenses. That iis definitely a good buy in my opinion. Even with manual focus only, its relatively fast and sharp.

Largobob

WOW, LWW. That is one very bold statement, indeed! "The Nikkor 50 1.8 is arguably the sharpest lens on the market."

Do you have a source for that....or did you just pull it out of your anatomical storehouse?

Nikon1201

Buy,buy

Hbuk66 Loc: Oswego, NY

There are about 8 different Nikon 50mm f1.8 lenses, and I believe the sharpest is the AI version.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

The series E 50mm f1.8 is also one of the best 50mm f1.8 Nikon lenses. The whole series were optically excellent but unpopular because of use of plastic. They would fit in perfectly with the current plastic Nikon lenses today.
Here it is for $55.00.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/50mm-f-1-8-Nikon-PANCAKE-series-E-GIDDYUP/323447173518?hash=item4b4ef4318e%3Ag%3AzX8AAOSwPEFbnDgX&LH_BIN=1

Review: Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E

This lens was part of a series of lenses which were designed for the launch of the Nikon EM in 1979, and subsequent FG and FG20. These were extremely compact SLRs for their time, and a surprise marketing move on Nikon’s part. And so was the introduction of these lenses, which were not particularly well-received. They did not carry the NIKKOR designation, and incorporated a lot of plastic to save weight and cost. But, their optical and build quality was outstanding nonetheless.

Then in 1981, in response to complaints by Nikon users, they cosmetically upgraded this lens (along with other E-Series lenses) to look more like their NIKKOR offerings. The plastic “windowed” focus ring was replaced with a traditional metal one with an AI-S style grip. The “body” reverted to the silver grab ring, although this was most likely aluminum instead of dull-chromed brass. But the optical design and quality all stayed the same. The upgraded version is a tiny bit longer than the original, which is so small that it is often referred to as a pancake lens.

The optical formulae used in these lenses were simple; ones that could produce excellent quality at reasonable cost. By today’s standard, the build quality is outstanding, and the image quality among some of the best lenses out there. This design uses only single coated elements, and still it has minimal ghosts and flare due to it’s simple optical design (the current design uses seven multicoated elements in 6 groups, including one aspherical element.)