Will using a lens at max aperture ("wide open") result in poor images?

I’m looking to add a second lens to my kit lens I got with my Nikon d7000.

I have read several reviews on both the 35 and 50 mm lenses made by Nikon in particular that said using either lens at the max aperture results in less than stellar images.

I wanted to know from actual users who know what they are doing if this was in fact the case. This is because some of the reviews came from Amazon and more often than not bad reviews are caused not by bad product but rather bad users... not just of lenses.

I want a great lens for use in low light such that I don’t need to use a flash for indoor portrait work and can get high enough shutter speeds to stop peoples motions (dancing) without blur in the images.

Hence I started looking at the 35 and 50 mm with f1.8, but after hearing its "unusable" at 1.8 and should be stopped down at 2.2 for clear images, I figured since this would seriously limit its function for my intentions I began looking at the f1.4 and saw similar reviews.

If indeed this is the case then I would rather go with the 1.4 and stop it down at 1.8 to get a nice shot as a result. Thoughts and experiences with this would help me make my selection.

Thanks all.

Answer

Almost any lens will be less-than-optimal at its maximum aperture. That being said, there's a reason why the faster glass costs more -- a lot of work goes into getting that extra bit of glass at the edges to contribute as much as possible to image brightness while reducing the aberrations that contribute to overall image softness. That means, for instance, the use of aspherical elements and (often, but apparently not in the case of the Nikkor 50mm/1.4, which is not really pushing the speed limit) apochromatic correction (a technique to reduce colour fringing to ridiculously low levels, more often seen in telephoto lenses). The f/1.4 lenses are usually better at f/1.4 than, say, an f/1.8 (commodity glass) would be at f/1.8, and are almost always better at f/1.8 than the f/1.8 lens would be (there are older third-party lenses that are fast but otherwise abysmal performers all-around, and, quite frankly, the Canon f/0.95 was too mushy to use in anything but near-absolute darkness, but the Nikkors tend to be rather better than average).

You will almost always find that by the time a lens is stopped down two stops or so, you enter the range of maximum sharpness and definition, and the lens will stay in that zone until diffraction becomes an issue (starting between f/11 and f/16). That doesn't mean you have to stop down to f/2.8 to make the f/1.4 lens work well, just that it won't reach maximum sharpness and contrast until you get into that area. You won't notice any problems until you compare the result wide-open to something stopped down a bit unless you are trying to shoot something with very high contrast and detail.