If I ever buy an AF Nikkor...which I will someday...the very first one I will buy is a late 80s early 90s 85/1.8 AF...not the AF D...not the G...it is far superior than the China made G and the only advantage the D imparts is if you use flash...it will work on every Nikon made the only caveat being it won't autofocus on the D40, D5000, D3100, D5100, F2, FM, FE, etc...but who frigging cares! If you go back and look through my threads you will find a link to some Polish website I posted that shows a ton of pics shot with this lens...
IMHO you are wasting your time using a 50 for portraits even on a crop camera...