Comments on the post above, from my POV, having owned all the lenses mentioned:
My experience is as follows:
50mm zf = nikkor
IMHO, the ZF 50/2 is better than the Nikko 50/1.4 stopped down to ƒ2
50mm zf makro > nikkor 50/1.4 or 60mm micro/2.8
Agree
Agree
25mm zf > nikkor 24 (zf 25 not as good as the zf 35 )
Agree, but ZF 25 has different look and very close focussing despite no floating element—but not different enough to keep, for me.
I bought yet another copy of the 85/1.4 (Nikkor) recently and to be honest, it really is not as good (these days) as it has been seen to be, in the past. I will sell this and get the Nikkor 85/1.8. DOF and
bokehdifference is trivial, IMHO. When I shot film and available light, I used a MF Nikkor 85/2, and it was razor sharp wide open, which is how I used it 95% of the time.
I have not owned the current ZF 85/1.4 I did buy the hugely expensive Contax RTS system when I was shooting the dance and theatre stuff all those years ago, just to be able to use the Zeiss 85/1.4, and I was very disappointed in it. Might have been sample variation (and no one then would head of swapping my copy for another to test) and the Nikkor was noticeably sharper at ƒ2 than the Zeiss at the same aperture. I do not know if the current ZF is a different lens, but it looks very similar to me. Others may assist here.
No one can say too good things about this lens: it is the best I own on the D3. cheers, kl