Nikon 24mm Comparison: You pay almost three times more to go from f/1.8 to f/1.4. http://nikonrumors.com/2015/08/05/nikon-24mm-f1-8g-ed-vs-24mm-f1-4g-ed-specifications-comparison.aspx/...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You pay almost three times more to go from f/1.8 to f/1.4.

http://nikonrumors.com/2015/08/05/nikon-24mm-f1-8g-ed-vs-24mm-f1-4g-ed-specifications-comparison.aspx/

stonecherub Loc: Tucson, AZ

I presume they make these things the good, old-fashioned way - they make a bunch of lenses that fit a Gaussian distribution of their qualities. A few are really great at f/1.4, a few go into the trash and the rest (most) are pretty damned good at f/1.8. The tiny minority of really great elements are combined to make a very few really great f/1.4 lenses that are worth the premium price.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

stonecherub wrote:

I presume they make these things the good, old-fashioned way - they make a bunch of lenses that fit a Gaussian distribution of their qualities. A few are really great at f/1.4, a few go into the trash and the rest (most) are pretty damned good at f/1.8. The tiny minority of really great elements are combined to make a very few really great f/1.4 lenses that are worth the premium price.

If you say so. :D

jkoar Loc: The Gunks, NY

stonecherub wrote:

I presume they make these things the good, old-fashioned way - they make a bunch of lenses that fit a Gaussian distribution of their qualities. A few are really great at f/1.4, a few go into the trash and the rest (most) are pretty damned good at f/1.8. The tiny minority of really great elements are combined to make a very few really great f/1.4 lenses that are worth the premium price.

The 1.4 and the 1.8 have the same elements?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

jkoar wrote:

The 1.4 and the 1.8 have the same elements?

The specs say no. Fewer in the f/1.8.

Longlens24 Loc: Cedar Park, Texas

The 1.4 and 1.8 are different lenses, different designs.

BebuLamar

jerryc41 wrote:

You pay almost three times more to go from f/1.8 to f/1.4.

http://nikonrumors.com/2015/08/05/nikon-24mm-f1-8g-ed-vs-24mm-f1-4g-ed-specifications-comparison.aspx/

That is why I ain't gonna use the ND filter. Too much money to waste.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

My old film cameras had lenses that for the most part were f/3.5 or smaller. When I first started working with DSLRs I thought that the larger apertures would be significantly better when it came to my photography. Let in more light and I can get better shots (faster shutter speeds to combat shaky hands or moving subjects). So I got a 50mm f/1.4. And other lenses in my collection started at f/2.8.

Fast forward a few years and I had 10K images in my photopile. I found a utility that would take them all and show me the distribution of various parameters in the capture of those images. I found that the extrema of focal lengths prevailed, a lot of wide angle and a lot of telephoto and a moderate amount of midrange focal lengths. But when it came down to aperture, there was a peak in the f/5.6-8 range and very few shots at apertures less than f/3.5 (or more then f/16). I used f/1.4, but the number of keepers I got at that aperture was very small.

Today, the availability of high quality high ISO images makes it possible to get photos without resorting to large apertures. And the DOF is much larger with the smaller apertures. Postprocessing techniques make it possible to reduce the DOF on an image, but it's more difficult to increase DOF, so midrange apertures are preferable in my opinion. I'd rather have too large a DOF than too small.