It's small, comes with a NC filter, nice lens shade, and pretty good resistance to flare.

Not sharp and expensive for not being sharp. It's also slow at f2.8. It took me in for a fool thinking that a slow expensive lens would be my dream sharp lense. I'm writing this review because I don't want any other people to make the same mistake I did. As a company owner I have big expectation. This lens isn't all that great. I have Nikon 4 ED scanner and I enlarge to 100% to see the detail of an image. The lense isn't all that sharp even when stopped down to f5.6. The lense has a strange smooth quality almost as if it isn't ever or even can achieve focus. The lense also exhibits dramatic light fall off that gets worst as you move away from the center. I have a 100% finder on my F4 and F2 and can see this problem readily. If you want to check this for yourself, point the camera at a table lamp lamp shade when the bulb is turned on. Then look at the middle and follow and monitor the brightness of the light to the sides of the viewfinder. Now this isn't really a problem when taking pictures (even slides) because the film latitude compensates and makes the lighting pretty smooth so it isn't noticeable but it shows the light fall off problem. The person down there who said this lens is sharper than their nikon 50 f1.4 isn't correct. The 50 F1.4 is sharper by a long shot. Just stop it down to about f4. The sharpest lense I have come accross in the nikon line up is so far the 105 F2.5 AIS lense. I can see individual hairs at the fullest resolution of my scanner making it possible to enlarge to the 20x30 size. The 105 makes pictures that ressemble medium format. I believe that 105 is a perfect lense. It's super sharp at f4 and smaller.

Size
Weight
Sharpness
Contrast
Build quality

If you can't live without AF and are dead set against manual focusing then leave well alone.
Some may say the price is high, but I picked it up for £180 (without the hood), and I've seen it go for twice that.

Ok, first of all don't let any internet reviewer put you off this lens.
It really is a fantastic lens, and I have been blown away by its sharpness even fully wide open at f2.8.
The out-of-focus background rendering is beautiful and creamy, and to my eyes looks nicer than that produced by the 50mm f/1.4 af d.
For me 45mm is the perfect focal length, as it just seems right, it must be the Goldilock effect I guess.
It can do landscape, close-up, and portrait in one tiny beautifully made body.
I have it mounted on a Nikon DF with the D4 sensor at 16mp, and it just seems tailor-made for that camera.
If you want a little jewel of a lens and are not afraid of old-school manual focus, just go out and get one, you will not be disappointed.

Small Size.

Low build quality, you want to bet? just grab one of the old AI or AIS lenses.
relatively low speed for the focal lenght.

I bought 270 US dollars it because of its small size to use it with my old FM2n and my new FM3A I usually used a 50mm f1.8 AIS pancake non-E Series. But with this new lens I even could put the camera in my Jackets poket. Tthe sharpness and optics was fine for my needs. Hoever I was worried about its build quality and unfortunately during a trip to the north of the country where the humidity is relatively high the aperture ring stuck. this had never happened with my f1.8 pankcake. Any way I sold it 100 US$. I still use my F1.8 50 mm.

Similar Products Used:

AF 50mm f1.4D, MF AI 20mm f3.5, MF AIS 35mm f2.8, MF AIS 85mm f2, MF AIS 200mm f4, AF 35-70 f2.8D.

Compact, Meter is working on a D40-D80, Good background (round hot-spot) it's only in Nikon normal lens.

Not a fast lens, a bit of expensive but fair.

This lens was sharp, good color and nice bokeh. I use black version with D40X it's still metering, look very compact and smart. When I compare with my 50 f/1.4D (Japan) It's equa of sharp but 45 P gave a round hot-spot. I very loved it!!

Customer Service

No need for this lens.

Similar Products Used:

AF 28 f/1.4D, Ai-s 35 f/1.4, 50 f/1.8 Series E, Ai-s 50 f/1.8, Ai-s 50 f/1.4, AF 50 f/1.4D (Japan), Ai-s 55 f/2.8 micro, AF 60 micro D and non-D version. Carl Zeiss Tessar T* 45 f/2.8, a lot of normal zoom.

small, compact, sharp as hell!

price

Great sharp lens,... really great if you don't want to be noticed.

Similar Products Used:

nikkor 50m 1.2

Good at 2.8, very good thereafter, but it does lose a bit at 22, if you ever go there. Smooth and charming bokeh, compared to most Nikkors. Excellent contrast - especially great for black & white use. Small and light - great combination with an FM-style body. Very smooth and short focus throw for nimble hand-holding. Almost impossible to flare and great contrast - Nikon must have put some excellent coating on this glass. Intelligent lens hood design. Built to last. Equipped to communicate with all the clever stuff in modern Nikon bodies.

After 3 or 4 years of very frequent use, the focusing ring on mine has losened up just a little.

Most Nikkors have pretty ugly out of focus rendering, not this one. Very good optics and high quality mechanics. Small light and robust. A different and preferable look to its images compared to other Nikkor primes. Others have complained it's a bit fiddly to handle, but after some time with it I find it very quick and easy to use. Learning its ways pays off. If you think it's too slow at f/2.8 you bought the wrong lens. This is a lovely compliment to, but not a replacement for, a fast 50mm, if you like very low light photography.

Similar Products Used:

Various Nikkor 50mms

Very Compact and sharp at every apatures. This lens is not for everybody, it is slow and expensive standard focal length lens. But it is compact, light, very sharp and contrasty image producing jewell. I shoot at all apatures from 2.8 to 22 for portraits, landscape ect. Of course I use tripod when I use ISO 25-100 films and when I walk around with this I'm loaded with ISO 400 and 3200. I do carry SB-30 for emergency but rarely used it. It produces excellent bokeh and color rendition and has very uniq look of the images. Almost like contax 45f2 lens but not. I love this lens and I carry it everywhere with my 28f2.8AIS and ISO400 films. They are unbeatable. Very good for street shooting.

Customer Service

Havent needed for this lens but they are usually good enough.

Similar Products Used:

Normal focal length - Nikon 50f1.8AFD, Contx 45f2, Minolta 50f1.4

Compact size and weight.

none

I read reviews here before I went to buy this lens. Some people mentioned about it's slow speed and not a sharpest lens at max apature. I went to see it and I just had to buy it for how it looks. It's so small and compact and it's what I wanted size and weight-wise. I have very bad back and heavy big bulky metal cameras and lenses really bothers my back big time and the FM3A and 45mm/2.8P lens package was what I've been longing for.I shot couple black and white films, color slides. Despite it's slow speed compare to other prime lenses I find it very sharp and crisp. The tonality of black and white was really nice and the contrast and colors rendering that was captured was not dissapointing and rather very pleased. Although I need more faster speed like 50mm/f1.2 or f1.8 or 35mm/f1.4, its does serve what I need and I'm very satisfied with it. It's my everyday lens on my FM3A and I haven't had any regrets since I bought it.

Customer Service

None

Similar Products Used:

Nikon AI lenses Minolta MD lenses Pentax Takuma lenses

Extremely sharp close up, and very sharp at distance right out to the corners even when wide open! No noticable distortion even in corners at F2.8! Super sharp at F4 and above. Fantastic colour rendition, contrast, and bokeh. The best of the primes. Tiny, tiny, tiny!!! Excellent build quality.

If anything a little pricy!

I read all the reviews here (10 rave reviews and 3 less than rave reviews)before purchasing this lens, and I admit I was concerned about sharpness with this lens, but I purchased it anyway. And boy am I glad I did. What a fantastic versatile tiny and extremely sharp lens!!! And with fantastic contrast, colour rendition, and great bokeh to boot. Looks great on my FM3a too. One thing I've noticed is that it's possible to go past infinity when focussing at a distance thus putting the lens back out of focus slightly (could this be the cause of sharpness concerns?!). A little care is required when focussing on distant objects. Close ups are extremely sharp with distance shots being just very very sharp. Reminds me of the AIS 28mm 2.8F in this respect. Also, this lens performs really well wide open, and is very resistant to flaring. Highly recommended.

Customer Service

Not needed!

Similar Products Used:

AIS 50mm 1.4F, AIS 28mm 2F, AIS 28mm 2.8F etc.

sharpness, color, contrast, build

Price (if purchased new).

Outstanding sharpness and contrast! Very well built. I use it in an F100 and the manual focus feel of this lens is a dream. I have used many 50mm Nikkors in the past and the sharpness, color and contrast of this 45mm lens is better.

Customer Service

Not Needed

Similar Products Used:

MF 50mm f1.8 ,AF 50mm f1.8 ,AF 50mm f1.8 "D",AF 50mm f1.4 "D"