I thought I'd post a few photos of a fashion shoot I did last year. All of these shots were taken with a Nikon D300s & a 50mm f1.4G and they were all shot with the lens wide open, except for the last photo, which was shot at f4.
With the 1.5 crop factor of the APS-C sensor, the 50mm is equivilent to a 75mm in full frame terms, which is a pretty good focal length for portraits. At f1.4 and shooting close to the subject, it is important to move the camera focus point on to the eye closest to the camera. Focus and recompose won't work at this distance!
Although I was shooting at f1.4, the 50mm G lens is sharp where it should be, but with beautiful buttery bokeh that does wonders for skin, even before photoshop (these are obviously not straight out of the camera though). Click HERE for a 100% crop.
We were lucky that the day of the shoot was planned to coincide with a public holiday, so the streets were unusually empty.