I have borrowed my friends 85mm f/1.8D a few times but have never really played with it enough. I have used it on both my D300 and my D80 and while I am sure the D300 images are better, I have not really tried an apples-to-apples comparison.
Since I have been using my Nifty Fifty on my D700 quite heavily, the one thing I have noticed with the 85mm is that I have to stand quite far to get a decent composition. Which is really interesting because when I first started using the 50mm I was having to move closer ;~) Of course that was because before the 50mm I was mostly using the 18-200mm or the 24-85mm or the 24-70mm (much less than the first 2). When ever I use a zoom lens, I always tend to zoom in to get a really tight composition. Using the 50mm and the 35mm forced me to make my composition more wide.
Nikon D80, f/5.6, 1/200s, ISO 200
Nikon D300, f/4.0, 1/80s, ISO 800
Nikon D300, f/8.0, 1/80s, ISO 800
Nikon D300, f/4.0, 1/80s, ISO 800
Nikon D300, f/4.0, 1/80s, ISO 800
Nikon D300, f/4.0, 1/60s, ISO 400
Nikon D300, f/4.0, 1/125s, ISO 800
Nikon D80, f/1.8, 1/8s, ISO 800
Nikon D80, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO 800
– manzoor
chobismriti 