Nikon AF-S NIKKOR f/1.8G ED Lens - 85 mm

Product Information

This is a swell lens. It's the same as every other Nikon manual-focus lens, which means perfect focus feel and easy-to-set apertures. There are no color fringes as shot on Nikon cameras, which by default correct for any that may be there. While optical performance is the same, this Nikon lens adds autofocus (the Zeiss is manual-focus only) and costs less than one-sixth as much. The ZEISS needs the FTZ Adapter while this Nikon Z lens works directly on Nikon's Z cameras. The Nikon lens is also much smaller and lighter. With a 9-bladed rounded diaphragm, I get pretty good 18-pointed sunstars on brilliant points of light at the smaller apertures.

The wider the aperture for camera lenses, the more difficult it is for lens manufacturers to make them fast focusing. With those caveats, the Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF-S G is ultra-sharp edge-to-edge at every aperture, especially on the 36 MP Nikon D800.See Nikon Lens Compatibility for details with your camera. Read down the "AF-S, AF-I" and "G" columns for this lens. You'll get the least of all the features displayed in all columns, since "G" ( gelding) is a deliberate handicap which removes features. None of these 85mm f/1.8 lenses was AI (automatic indexing); you had to engage the prong with pre-1977 camera's metering feelers to couple the light meters.

This Nikon 85mm f/1.8 G is the sharpest 85mm lens ever made by Nikon, sharper on the D800 than even the extraordinary 85mm f/1.4 G, and Nikon's been making 85mm lenses since 1949. On the D800 in the laboratory, it's also slightly sharper than the original and still current 85mm f/1.8 AF-D. Despite the bigger size and bulkier lens barrel, as I have already mentioned, the Nikon 85mm f/1.8G is actually 30 grams lighter than its predecessor and almost twice lighter than the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G! It balances really well with any DX camera and it feels just right in terms of size, weight and focal length on professional DSLRs like Nikon D3s as well. NIKON D800 + 85mm f/1.8 @ 85mm, ISO 200, 1/2500, f/4.0Here are crops from the center of 100% FX 12MP (D3 or D700) images, focused on a reference phase lattice at 3 meters (10 feet) with synthetic reference vegetation at 15 meters (50 feet). Printed full-image at this size, these would be about 42 x 28" (105 x 70cm) prints, at least as seen on most 100 DPI computer monitors:

This is an FX lens, and works especially well with on FX, 35mm and DX Nikons like the D4, D800, D800E, D7000, D700, D3X, D300s and F6. It works fantastically on manual-focus cameras like the F2AS, F3, FE and FA, since it has real manual-focus and aperture rings that work exactly as they should.The only incompatibility is that it will not autofocus with the cheapest D40, D40x, D60, D3000, D3100, D5000 or D5100, but if you focus manually, everything else works great. These cameras have in-finder focus confirmation dots to help you. The Nikon Z 85 1.8 has no distortion, with or without Auto Distortion Control ON or OFF (> SHOOTING> Auto Distortion Control > ON (at least in Z7 and Z6)). I'd keep a Nikon 52mm NC filter on it for protection on digital cameras, or when shooting color print film, or B&W film indoors. The focus ring is large and easy to rotate. Due to having a focus-by-wire stepping motor, the focus ring is not coupled mechanically to anything, so it can be set up to perform different functions such as change lens aperture. If you decide to manually focus with the lens, keep in mind that the experience is completely different when compared to Nikon F lenses. Personally, I am not a big fan of the way Nikon implemented manual focusing on the Z system – I wish there was a way to set up manual focus parameters, such as focus throw speed and acceleration.