Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 Review

Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 lens on a red background with a photograph of a person do a fire performance in the background.

My indepth Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 Review and is it really worth it?

Hello and welcome to my Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 review and boy did I make a mistake with this lens. I am going to tell you more about that mistake later on though. In this 50mm F1.2 review we will be looking at sharpness, vignetting, distortion, focus speed, focus breathing and Bokeh too as well of course.

As well as talking about it’s size, weight and how I have found using this 50mm F1.2 lens over the last few weeks, so come on let’s get into it and I will tell you all about it.

I have my full Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 review video below if you would prefer to watch it and see the results as I talk about them…

So, yes, Nikon did send this lens out for this review but it will be going back to them in a few days and no I wasn’t paid for this review, so these are my own personal thoughts on this lens.

Now as a fashion photographer and portrait photographer a 50mm lens is a great lens to have in your gear bag especially one as wide as this one, it’s hard to beat F1.2…

But I already have three other 50mm lenses here that I bought and paid for myself so I never felt the need to splash out on the 50mm F1.2 lens but was I wrong in that?

Build Quality and first impressions

First off I have to say this lens is incredibly well made as you would expect from an S line nikon lens… you do feel like you are getting good value for money straight out of the box as this lens is built like a tank and it’s not exactly a small either.

The large easy to find focus ring is beautifully smooth and it has a focus throw of approx 90 degrees, the control ring is again smooth and accurate, the display is bright and sharp so it’s very easy to read.

The “Fn” and “Display” buttons are well made and positive to the touch and you get a nice tactile confirmation of each button press, of course the lens is also weather sealed… Please note that does not mean it’s waterproof and this is something I didn’t test 🙂

The lens body itself is again very solid and feels like its built to last, as is the lens hood which of course can go on backwars while transporting the lens.

All around the first impressions on this lens are great and it’s not just me saying this, several people have commented on it while I was using it and on one of the many days I was out using it, I was shooting a street festival and I could see a good few fellow photographers eyeing up this lens.

For me then the next obvious thing to look at is image sharpness but before we go into that let me tell you about my 50mm journey.

A man holding the Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 lens with three other 50mm lens for a group test of Nikon 50mm lenses

My 50mm journey and the lenses I currently own.

Now to give you a bit of a background here, I currently own the Nikon Z mount 50mm F1.8 which is a great lens… I bought the F1.8 before the F1.2 was available, maybe that was my mistake but it is what it is.

I have the old Nikon F mount F1.4 G and of course my F mount Sigma Art F1.4 which is a truly gorgeous lens and known to be frighteningly sharp.

I still use the Sigma art lens a lot today as I have always loved the results I have gotten from it. As I already owned the Sigma F1.4 lens I thought there was no serious need to buy the 50mm F1.2 lens, so when Nikon offered it for review I was super excited to see just how good it really was for myself and that was my first mistake….

So let’s take a serious look at sharpness now and how it performs for centre sharpness and corner sharpness and more importantly how sharp it is wide open and at what aperture does sharpness truly peak on the Nikon 50mm F1.2?

Text saying Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 How sharp is it really with aphotograph of the lens and a picture of a man spinning firesticks in the corner.

Sharpness review

To say this lens is sharp would be a serious insult to it, this is by far and away the sharpest 50mm lens I have ever used and tested and yes, I do mean nothing else comes close to it.
Centre Sharpness
In the video above you can see even wide open at F1.2 and zoom in at 100% in the centre of the image the results are ridiculously good, stopping down to F1.4 helps a bit and when you hit F1.8 it just gets better again. 
In my tests I found F4 to be the sweet spot for sharpness on this lens but in reality once you stop down to even F2.2 it’s nearly as sharp.
Corner sharpness
In the video above you can clearly see the corner sharpness at F1.2 is not great but that’s to be expected from any lens shot wide open. Once you stop down to F1.8 it improves significantly, F2.8 proveds very good results and again at F4 it yields really sharp corners.
For me once you hit F2.2 or F2.8 the corners on this lens are more than sharp enough though and anything beyond that is purely for the pixel peepers.
So the overall the sweet spot on this lens for sharpness if clearly F4 but again even at F1.8, F2.2 or F2.8 it’s incredibly sharp.   
Text saying Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 Bokeh Review is it really that good? With a photograph of the lens and a street perfomer.

Bokeh Review

This 50mm F1.2 lens renders beautifully creamy backgrounds with some incredibly nice transitions as you can see in the video section above and it makes my other lenses look really bad and I wasn’t expecting this at all.

Yes, I knew it was going to be good but in the video above you can see how it transitions from in focus to out of focus areas and how smoothly it does it while keeping you subject pin sharp and vibrantly popping off the screen.

I can only give this lens a 5 out of 5 for Bokeh and it’s truly deserved.

A man performing at a fire show with a mask on and fire sticks in his hands.

Real World results

Before we get into the more technical aspects of the lens let’s have a look at some of the real world results this lens has produced for me like the shot above for example… Just look how the background has been dissolved and the fire performer is pin sharp, this was shot at F1.2 and yes it’s really that sharp wide open.

The photographs below again just show incredible this lens is even in very fast paced low light busy situations where you have a split second to focus and capture the image you want.

The focus was perfect every single time and I never noticed it hunting or missing its target and more importantly I never had to wait for the camera to catch up to me in fact it always felt like it was one step ahead.

A street performer wearing a large mask during a parade.
A man performing at a fire show with a mask on and fire sticks in his hands.
A street performer wearing a large mask during a parade.

So all in all using this lens an incredibly pleasant experience and one that will stick in my memory for years to come.  I know it’s not cheap but for what you get I would argue it certainly isn’t expensive either.

Anyway let’s get back to the more technical aspects of this review now.

Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 distortion resluts on a test chart.

Distortion

As you can clearly see in the photograph above there is no distortion in this lens, ok if you pixel peep with a ruler ever lens has some level of distortion but I would say if asked this lens is near perfect and the most perfect lens I have ever tested.

So, you can safely strike distortion off your list of concerns.

Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 Vignetting test chart results at F1.2
Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 Vignetting test chart results at F1.8

Vignetting

At F1.2 there is some vignetting in this lens as you can see on the image on the above on the left but it is very slight and I have shot several photographs wide open and never noticed any vignetting at all, the white test chart really does show any slight vignetting at all.

The image above on the right then is stopped down to F1.8 and it’s practically gone to remove it completely stop the lens down to F2.8 and any slight vignetting is gone.

You can also click on the enable profile corrections option on your editing software and it will correct it automatically.

So Vignetting is not an issue at all thankfully.

A test chart image from the Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 lens showing the lack of Chromatic aberration it produces.
A test image showing the lack of Chromatic Aberration on the Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 with a black Nikon camera on a white background.

Chromatic Aberration

In the two images above you can see there is no Chromatic Aberrtion at all produced by this lens and even the high contrast image of the dark camera with the white background couldn’t bring any out.

Is it too soon to mention again this lens is practically optically perfect? I know it’s getting boring isn’t it?

Sheer perfection here again Nikon, I am seeing that optical design is reaping serious rewards now.

A photograph of the Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 with text saying Focus Spoeed and Focus Breathing Review all on a red background.

Focus Speed and focus breathing.

In the video above I show you how quickly this lens focuses and also demonstrate how little focus breathing it has, this makes it ideal for those video shooters out there.

Again, I was expecting this lens to be really quick at focusing and while it is fast it’s not the fastest lens I have tested, I am guessing part of that is down to the sheer volume of optics this lens needs to shift to correct focus.

For me it’s more than fast enough and definitely worth it again you can judge for yourself in the video clip above.

In all honesty the lack of focus breathing is what really blew me away about this lens, can I say it’s optically perfect again or would that be too much?

I am trying not to sound like a fan boy here and keep this impartial but wow Nikon this is one special lens.

Size and Weight

Ok, so this is the part where I have mixed feelings as I like to have a nice light camera bag while moving around but then again I also like to have nice balanced sytem in my hands when shooting in studio all day or while out doing a shoot on location and this lens does balance nicely on my Nikon Z8 (review here) and Nikon Z7ii.

I already own the 50mm F1.8 which is not only half the size but also less than half the weight, the 50mm F1.2 Weighs 1.09kg and the 50mm F1.8 weighs only 0.42kg and that’s what has me torn now.

I suppose if you don’t mind the size and weight then this lens is practically perfect but if you like a light small camera bag then maybe have a think about it as this is a big lens.

Review Conclusion

Crazily, I shot the 50mm F1.2 lens a lot on my Nikon Z8, Z7ii and the ZF I had on loan for review from Nikon and boy did it excel on all cameras. This lens is a true thing of beauty and if you are looking for the most optically perfect 50mm lens then this lens has to be top of your list.

It blew me away at how sharp it was and then those backgrounds were to die for. In short I felt this lens helped me achieve photographs to a far higher standard than I thought I could achieve.

All in all…. Wow, Nikon you really made a statement with this lens and for one am sold on it.

My huge mistake with this lens was not buying it years agao and I can clearly see that now.

So I went to my local Nikon professional dealer and I wanted to order this lens but funny story now I didn’t I actually ordered another lens and it just arrived today…

So whatch out for details andf a review of that lens over on my YouTube channel and don’t forget to subscribe to stay up to date on all the latest news 🙂

Thanks for reading my review, I hope it was really helpful and as always if you have any questions do please feel free to ask them. I have a few more reviews below that might be of interest.

Nikon Z8 video rig setup

Nikon Z 180-600mm Review

Nikon Z8 vs Z7ii Review

See you out there or see you in the next video,

Kieran.

Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 Review : Was this a huge mistake?

In this Nikon Z 50mm F1.2 review I will guide you through its sharpness, bokeh, distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, focus speed and focus breathing...

Editor's Rating:
4.9

Pros

  • Pin Sharp
  • Distortion free
  • Fast
  • Optically perfect

Cons

  • Size
  • weight
  • Price