As some do know I'm a father and grandfather and allbeit a wildlife photog nowadays I used to shoot weddings, modells and portraiture back in the days (40 years ago)
Now my beloved wife and better half asked me to plan a shoot with my girls and grandkids and I said okay I can (big mouth) and will do that.
I decided to go for a 85mm (to be used with the Z7), but now looking at the offerings I'm not sure which lens I should get.
Which one (and if you would be so kind to tell me why) should I get?
I still use my 85mm f1.4D a lot for portraits. I prefer it over the 70-200mm f2.8VRII. The 85mm is not the sharpest in the world wide open but it does get acceptably sharp fter f2.0. I've been wanting to upgrade to the 105mm f1.4E as I've read and seen in many review is the sharpest portrait lens at wide open. However, I had a chance to try the 200mm f2.0 VRII for two weeks and boy! My 105mm f1.4E lust just went away. Yes, it's a heavy lens but the image it renders is just magical. It is very high on my list now. Plus, the VRII allows me to handhold with my D850 at 1/80sec without any issue. I think everyone should rent or try this lens if you're into portrait shooting.
Although the 200mm f2.0 is now my lust after lens, the 105mm f1.4E is more practical. I only wish the 105 f1.4E has VR but on your Z7, that will be taken care of by IBIS.
ps: the FTZ adaptor takes away any of my excitement using F mount lens on the Z camera.
I'd recommend the Nikon 85 f1.8G (having owned the sigma art and tamron 85s as well). Relatively inexpensive, small, light, fast and accurate AF, sharp wide open on modern sensors.
The 85 f1.4G has a bit different color rendition - to some preferable, but it's not sharper, which is why I passed on it.
I also have the Nikon 105 f1.4E and though it is superb and one of my favorite lenses, it's much more expensive than the 85 f1.8G. There is also a big difference between 105 and 85 in tighter spaces - it's about a 3 foot difference backwards or forwards for the same framing (for typical portrait framing like chest/waist/mid-thigh and full body), which isn't always an option.
I've also owned the Tamron 85 f1.8 in canon mount, and found that it isn't sharper than the Nikon 85 f1.8G, and actually has a little slower AF speed. The Sigma (non-Art) 85 f1.4 is a decent lens, but has quite a bit of CA, and some complain about so-so AF accuracy (though depends on the body you're using to a certain degree). Have had the Sigma Art 85 f1.4, and it's a lovely lens but pretty big. If you want f1.4, I'd lean towards the Sigma Art but just keep the weight/size in mind.
As Sung suggested the 85/1.8G is a great lens and surprisingly small/light excellent match for the Z7 in terms of ergonomics.
I have the 85/1.8G, 85/1.4G and the 105E. My go to portrait lens is the 105E and my wife Marisa uses the 85/1.8G with her D750. I really like the 85/1.4G as it is small/light and the reviews have compared it to the the Sony GM 85/1.4 on equal footing. It depends on what is available used/new and pricing in Belgium The 85/1.8G I picked up for 200 AUD from a student and the 85/1.4G for very little. The 105E is expensive, larger and heavier and well matched on the D850.
Maybe the best choice is just rent the lens for the shoot
Only challenge with the DC lens is that it's screw drive if I recall correctly, so will be manual focus only on a mirrorless body like the Z7 or Z6. Definitely a great choice though with unique rendering if you're using it on a body that can drive the AF motor.
Indeed, with mirrorless, the AF-D and AF lenses will be as manual focus as the Ai-S and older ones.
If manual focus is not a problem, I would recommend the 85mm f1,4 Ai-S. Slightly sharper then the later AF-D version, which I own and like a real lot.
With your modern Z camera, the 85mm f1,8 AF-S is a real good alternative. Light, fairly small, slow AF, sharp and contrasty, some purple fringing, but no worse then the 105mm f2,8 AF-S Micro Nikkor.
Nikon 85mm f1.8d
Nikon 85mm f1.8g
Sigma Art 85mm f1.4
I preferred the D version over the G. Better color on my d800 and sharp enough for me wide open. The Sigma was a great lens but heavy. Too heavy when paired with my D4. Sold all three and now have a Zeiss 100mm f2 makro-planar, it's a manual focus lens, all I can say is wow. On my D850, tuff to beat.
Since people have already mentioned Nikon 105 F1.4 and also Nikon 200mm f2, I would throw Zeiss Otus 85 F1.4 into the mix as well. It’s manual focus but from my brief use of my Otus 55mm on Z7, it’s going to be a lot of fun to use, not to mention the unique Otus look.
I'm not a portrait shooter and I haven't had the chance to try as many lenses as previous posters have tried. However, I do have the Sigma 50 1.4 Art, the Nikon 85 1.8G, the Zeiss Milvus 85 1.4, and the Sigma 135 1.8 Art.
I have a 6-month old grandson that has just started crawling. I tried using the Zeiss lens for about 10 minutes before giving up on manual focus with a moving child. I love the Zeiss Milvus 85 for relatively static subjects. You're a much more experienced photographer than I am, so maybe you can handle it. I certainly couldn't.
Sung's point on tight spaces for the 85 vs 105 is even more salient for the 85 vs 135. Therefore, I've defaulted to the 85 1.8G for most of my individual family portraits. And I agree with Sung's assessment of this lens. I've been quite happy with it.
I have also been pleased with the results from the Sigma 50 1.4 for family group portraits, especially when I have a clean, well-separated background. But not everyone likes that lens as much as I do.
Finally, if you haven't looked at the Nikon 58mm 1.4 thread, you should. You will see some amazing portraits, including some from the previous posters. However, they also say that there is a fairly steep learning curve with that lens, even for experienced photographers, and it is relatively expensive.
For best modern 85mm lens for Nikon F mount I would recomment the AF-S 85mm f1.8. I havent used it myself, but its used for example by Benjamin Kanarek who is a famous fashion photographer and posts in this forum quite often, like this: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1586584 (that specific topic was however shot with Fujifilm X).
There are plenty of awesome older 85mm portrait lenses, like the Zeiss Planar 85mm f1.4 ZF, AI 85mm f1.4, and AF 85mm f1.4. These lenses all cost around $600 used. Only the last one has autofocus, and its screwdrive, meaning it needs a motor in the camera (all full frame DSLRs from Nikon to date have this motor, but many entry level DSLRs do not), makes a sound when focusing, is potentially slower though not always, and tends to be not as reliable in respect to precise focus.
For a really cheap portrait lens there is the AI 105mm f2.5 which is about $150 used and is apparently the lens that was used by Steve Curry to photograph the "Afghan Girl", and the Tokina 100mm f2.8 macro, which is about $250 used, offers autofocus (screwdrive) and is obviously also a macro lens.
Personally I use primarily Voigtländer Nokton 58mm f1.4 SLii, Nikkor AF 105mm f2 DC and Nikkor AF 180mm f2.8 for portraiture.
In the past I have used the Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2 ZF, but I have noticed that people do not like the output. This is a really analytic lens and shows all the skin details of people, including imperfecions and wrinkles. Its fine for children with a one digit age. Finally at this focal length (100mm) I really start to have trouble with manual focus on a D750. The builtin rangefinder isnt strict enough to tell when the lens is really in focus. Installing a focusing screen from focusingscreen.com didnt help either. The D850 is said to have a very strict manual focus confirmation, but I dont have it. I kind of hope the D750 successor will have an equally strict rangefinder. Not for using the Makro-Planar, though, but for getting more manual focus lenses and using that amazing AI-S 300mm f4.5 lens that I also posess but cannot use except with lifeview and magnification.
I once read that NASA tested a number of lenses for recording their rocket starts and the Makro-Planar won this competition, for being able to resolve more details than other lenses. This of course refers to the 2 Megapixel highspeed sensors used to record such an event.
Ignoring their extreme price, I am no fan of the output of the AF-S 105mm f1.4 or Otus 85mm f1.4.
Thanks for your input guys, appreciate it.
I've decided to go for the 105E, looking at the images taken with this lens I like the perspective slightly better than the 85mm lenses.
The suggested 85mm G lens is looking at its output absolutely a good proposition but I think it a bit 'harsh' for portraiture.
The 58mm is wonderfull but for my taste a bit to short, whereas the 200 F/2 is to long.
The 135DC is a very nice concept and it was running up with the 105E but last one is the better resolving one and allthough it has no defocus control its very 'smooth' with beautifull bokeh.
Hope it will live up to my expectations.
Thanks again guys!
Thern wrote:
Thanks for your input guys, appreciate it.
I've decided to go for the 105E, looking at the images taken with this lens I like the perspective slightly better than the 85mm lenses.
I wish my wife would ask me to do family portraits so that I could justify the 105E to her!! Have fun shooting with it!
-Bob
Use or borrow a lens that covers the 85mm to 135mm range and then go photograph people indoors and see what works the best.
With DX cameras I had to use the 85mm which provided a view angle of a 135mm lens which was to tight much of the time when shooting indoors. When I was able to buy Nikon's first FX DSLR camera, the D3, I quickly sold my 85mm lens and bought a 105mm one.
Sauseschritt wrote:
I once read that NASA tested a number of lenses for recording their rocket starts and the Makro-Planar won this competition, for being able to resolve more details than other lenses. This of course refers to the 2 Megapixel highspeed sensors used to record such an event.
Thern wrote:
Thanks for your input guys, appreciate it.
I've decided to go for the 105E, looking at the images taken with this lens I like the perspective slightly better than the 85mm lenses.
The suggested 85mm G lens is looking at its output absolutely a good proposition but I think it a bit 'harsh' for portraiture.
The 58mm is wonderfull but for my taste a bit to short, whereas the 200 F/2 is to long.
The 135DC is a very nice concept and it was running up with the 105E but last one is the better resolving one and allthough it has no defocus control its very 'smooth' with beautifull bokeh.
Hope it will live up to my expectations.
Thanks again guys! ...Show more →
I think you'll be very happy with the 105 f1.4E. It's in my opinion one of the best parts of switching over to Nikon from Canon - extremely sharp wide open, gorgeous out of focus rendering, some of the best color output of any of my lenses and not massively large and heavy like the Sigma Art.
Thern wrote:
Thanks for your input guys, appreciate it.
I've decided to go for the 105E, looking at the images taken with this lens I like the perspective slightly better than the 85mm lenses.
The suggested 85mm G lens is looking at its output absolutely a good proposition but I think it a bit 'harsh' for portraiture.
The 58mm is wonderfull but for my taste a bit to short, whereas the 200 F/2 is to long.
The 135DC is a very nice concept and it was running up with the 105E but last one is the better resolving one and allthough it has no defocus control its very 'smooth' with beautifull bokeh.
Hope it will live up to my expectations.
Thanks again guys! ...Show more →
