My number one criticism of the entry level Nikon dSLRs such as the D40\/D40x\/D60 is that they are unable to AF with certain lenses and this means there were no affordable good portrait lenses available for these cameras.<\/p>\n
Finally, Nikon has finally addressed this with an update to their AF-S 50mm f\/1.4 lens – now a G version (no aperture ring), but now with a built-in silent wave AF motor so AF works on these cameras, and a circular diaphragm for nicer bokeh (quality of blurring of the out of focus areas).<\/p>\n
On a DX Nikon dSLR, a 50mm standard lens gives an effective focal length of 75mm which is just adequate for portraiture, although I prefer more like 100-120mm in 35mm terms, hence the reason why I love the ZD 50mm f\/2 macro on my Olympus with its 2x crop factor, and the EF 85mm f\/1.8 on my Canon 1DMIII with its 1.3x crop factor.<\/p>\n
see also my comparisons on bokeh in selected portrait lenses<\/a><\/p>\n