This fast, classic portrait lens featuring Defocus Image Control allows for control over the degree of focus in the foreground or background of an image.

.

Price: $1,121.93 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.

In stock

Go to —> Product description

Lens nikkor Reviews

…

More lens than most people can handle, February 2, 2009
By J. Thompson (Orlando, FL USA)

This is an absolutely amazing lens. It takes unbelievable pictures with sharpness and bokeh that will knock your socks off; optically, it’s probably one of the best three Nikon lenses available. The bokeh isn’t just creamy - it looks like an oil painting. Virtually every picture properly shot reminds me of the paint scenes from “What Dreams May Come” with Robin Williams - it’s that amazing. Frequently, I don’t understand how a lens can make things look the way this lens does. It does more than record reality - it enhances it.

In my opinion, this lens outperforms the 85 1.4, in the right hands. And there’s the key - this lens is probably too much for all but the most dedicated photographers. You really have to know what you’re doing to get the most out of this lens. For a number of reasons, dilettantes are likely to get inferior images; most importantly, at this focal length, if you aren’t using the right shutter speed, even a tiny bit of camera shake will kill your sharpness (the weight of this lens doesn’t help, either). This lens is one stop slower than the 85, so in any given situation, your shutter speed is likely to be twice as long if you’re trying to maximize background blurring (although the DC more than makes up for that if you know how to use it). And the extremely shallow depth of field can be hard to handle; I almost always manually focus with this lens because autofocus, while fast and accurate, just doesn’t allow this lens to perform to its true potential. Finally, more than any other lens I use, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, the viewfinder is NOT a completely accurate representation of the final picture you will get from this lens, and that takes some getting used to. Neither the viewfinder nor the LCD is capable of rendering the subtle patterns of light that this lens can generate. There’s a certain luminosity to the pictures that is only first appreciable when you can actually look at the RAW file on a good monitor, and it’s breathtaking, but you’re not always expecting it. So, you have to know how this lens behaves while you’re shooting with it, and that takes more practice and dedication than most people are willing to devote - they want to mount a lens and start snapping away.

For those who are agonizing between this and the 85 1.4: the 85 1.4 is, in my opinion, a much more forgiving lens because it doesn’t have the sheer unbelievable resolving power that this lens does, especially in the borders. The 85 1.4 allows even inexperienced photographers to take contrasty, eye-popping shots with nice bokeh (once they can learn to deal with the depth-of-field issues, of course). This lens can do better, because it was designed to, but you really have to know exactly how to handle it - it’s a nightmare in the hands of those who don’t really know their camera. It’s also a good bit heavier than the 85 and hangs off the body a bit more - the picture doesn’t really illustrate the heft of the lens nikkor reviews. On the other hand, it doesn’t have the 85’s more persnickety lens hood - it has a retractable lens hood that is much more convenient and can’t get lost or scratch the lens body.

If you’re a very serious amateur or pro, you will absolutely love this lens and you will enjoy the process of learning its intricacies. It’s especially nice for portraits, its intended purpose, but of course has the optical quality to do everything well (except macro - it has a rather longish minimum focusing distance). If you’re an amateur who wants a general-purpose lens to take great pictures, this lens will only amplify your shortcomings and bring you frustration, so I recommend you stick with the 85 1.4 if you have this much cash to spend. If you want a walkabout lens, I’d also go with the 85 - this lens is a bit heavy for that in my opinion, though both are a bit long in focal length as a general purpose lens for my taste. I prefer a 35 or 50 for that, depending on what I plan to shoot.

EDIT: As everyone always says, this lens is primarily for portraits. Its resolving characteristics do in fact make it great for portraits of women and children (the majority of portraiture clients in my experience). For men, I prefer the 85/1.4 or even the 50/1.4 if you’re dealing with an interesting face. I have used it on men on occasion, but only when I’m going for the particular effect that DC provides. Most men don’t imagine themselves the way this lens will render them.
one of the most amazing lenses I have owned, April 3, 2009
By David Hofmann - See all my reviews

As a pro photographer for many years I have had the chance to try a large amount of lenses. This lens is one of my all time favorites.

It is already very sharp even wide open and from 2.8 on it is simply brilliant. The vignetting even at f/2 is less than other lenses in that range. The AF is quick and if used with a a D3 or D700 or D300 or newer camera it is also very quiet.

The magic of this lens is the wonderful bokeh (quality of the out of focus areas). My main work is portrait photography and I end up using this lens for the majority of my work.

The DC control is often not understood well. It “over-corrects” the spherical abberation of the lens to the front or back. As a result either the front or back of the subject will appear slightly softer. In reality the effect is subtle and since you will have to adjust the DC control ring each time according to your aperture setting *and* you will have to refocus each time you touch the DC ring, I end up not using this feature at all.

The overall built quality of the lens is excellent and solid. Manual focus is smooth. The built in lens hood is useful and locks in.

I have compared this lens to different 105 mm lenses and this one is the best lens in that range you can get. I would highly recommend getting this lens before Nikon decided to discontinue it.

There is one slight con to this lens at least when shooting with a D3. I noticed that only the 5 center AF points are accurate with this lens. When I used outer the AF points, the focus is slightly off in my photos. I have verified this with lots of tests. It is not a big deal for me as I use the center AF points all the time when I do head shots and portraits anyway. And yes it is only with this lens, all my other lenses are accurate with all AF points, so my nikon camera lens reviews definitely calibrated correctly. Other photographer using this lens have confirmed my findings.

Again this is no issue for me and it is my most used lens for portrait work. The look of the photos is just wonderful, smooth and the subject seems to pop.

Many examples of my work with this lens can be found on flickr user: childish_david

Bookmark It

Hide Sites