Digital SLR Reviews Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Aperture’

Nikon 85mm f 1 8D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras

This fast, compact lens is an excellent choice for indoor or outdoor portraits, as well as indoor sports and stage productions.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars This thing delivers.
If you have a grand to burn…get the 1.4. If you are a practical person, enjoy maxin’ out the gear you currently own before buying more stuff get the 1.8. This lens produces absolute beauty. The Bokeh is very…and i mean very pleasing and, of course, sharp as hell. I own various fixed lenses and even the 80-200mm af-s behemoth(serious “bokeh-er”)and I’m still drawn to my 85mm 1.8 like a magnet. I believe in squeezing my current gear before moving on to 1.4’s for example. That’s just me. This Nikkor is indeed fantastic. This is your lens if you need above average performance at a reasonable price.

5 Stars No need for the 85 f/1.4 for my needs!
I LOVE this lens!!! When shooting, I ALWAYS go to this lens for that “has to be sharp” photograph.

I can’t believe I took so long to purchase this, but am so glad that I did!

Focus is fast and accurate, and it does suffer from some CA, but only in extreme cases…but can be corrected easily in photoshop!

This lens has a great build, great weight and a great feel to it.

85mm is great for portraits, and the f/1.8 offers a VERY NICE bokeh!!!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

4 Stars Wonderful lens, especially for crop-size DSLRs
I like the 85mm focal length very much. On a Nikon crop-size DSLR, the 85mm focal length is a very useful short-to-medium telephoto length, giving a nice field of view with just enough distance compression to get a pleasant telephoto perspective. This lens’ wide aperture gives plenty of control of depth of field, allowing you to isolate your subject and get just the right amount of defocus elsewhere in the frame. I tend to prefer to use it at f/2.8 or so, although having the ability to go to f/1.8 is certainly useful at times.

A few notes on specific performance issues, some of which seem to be in disagreement with others here:

- I would not characterize the lens as very sharp wide open. I’ve sampled three of these lenses, two “AF” models and one “AF-D” model. The AF-D was the best. Like any lens I’ve used, it loses sharpness at wider apertures, and I would characterize it as soft at f/1.8, still moderately soft at f/2.8, good at f/4, sharp at f/5.6 and very sharp at f/8. There is a definite difference in sharpness at each aperture up through f/8. This is not necessarily bad. A bit of softness at f/1.8-f/2.8 might be desirable for portraits and some other types of photos, and the lens is very sharp where you would usually use it for landscapes and general photography – f/5.6-f/8 or so. At wider apertures, the contrast between a blurred background and relatively sharp subject remains striking and is a very pleasant effect that will allow you to get exceptional images.

- This is not a high-contrast lens, due at least partly to a lack of ED glass. This is appropriate and probably contributes to its reputation as a good portrait lens – skin tones are pleasantly rendered and the overall effect is slightly subtler and gentler compared to Nikon’s most contrasty lenses. I can shoot the same scene with this lens and then with my 16-85mm (consumer DX zoom), and colors that leap off the screen with the 16-85 are significantly mellowed with the 85/1.8.

- I don’t see any loss of contrast at wider apertures. This is good. The 50mm f/1.8 loses a lot of contrast wide open, for example (and mine is considerably softer than the 85mm at wide apertures).

- I would not say the quality of bokeh is particularly pleasing. It can be distracting at times, and I see color effects in the blurred areas (chromatic aberration), which occurs because different wavelengths of light are blurred differently by the lens (some very expensive lenses are “apochromatic,” meaning that they correct for this). This does not in my opinion detract significantly from my images, since the whole idea of defocus is to attract the viewer’s eye to the subject rather than away from it and so consequently one does not tend to study an out-of-focus background unless actually evaluating it specifically; but this might be one of the reasons the f/1.4 lens is a more popular choice among those willing to spend three times the money. This is speculation on my part as I have not tried the f/1.4.

- Focus is very quick and as far as I can tell completely accurate. I do use a simple test chart to test focus with all my lenses and this lens focuses well within its depth of field even wide open.

This lens is very good for tight indoor shots as well as outdoor photography. At near-wide-open it can be used indoors with fairly low available light and make very pleasing shots of tight groupings of people from a reasonable distance. A slower lens will tend to bring the background into the photo more than is desirable, which can be distracting in the final image.

It is not a good only lens and perhaps not even the first prime lens one should buy. It is a very good lens to have after all the basic focal ranges are covered, and perhaps after a “normal” prime, and it is a very good lens for taking pictures of people. In addition to this lens I highly recommend Nikon’s very affordable 35mm f/2 (2/25/09 note: Nikon has recently announced an even more affordable 35mm f/1.8 lens for DX which will probably prove to be an even better choice for DX users), which is very sharp indeed and in my opinion a far better lens than the 50mm f/1.8. I do however prefer the 85mm as a matter of pure personal taste: it is my personal favorite fixed-length lens.

I wish I could give it 4-1/2 stars as it is a good, good lens, but can not justify giving a full five. I don’t think anybody would regret buying it, however. With a bit of help from the user it is capable of making some truly fine images.

Other Lenses:

I’ve had the opportunity to own and use many different Nikon lenses and have posted my impressions of several of them here on Amazon. For those interested, here are short summaries. I have used all these lenses on Nikon DX-sized DSLRs, most recently my current D90. Refer to the full reviews for further detail.

35mm f/2 AF-D: **** Sharp, especially at large apertures, moderate contrast. Classic “normal” lens for DX but consider new 35mm f/1.8 AF-S instead.

50mm f/1.8 AF-D: *** My sample was unacceptably poor at large apertures. Perhaps a below-average sample. Focal length not ideally suited to DX.

16-85mm VR ***** Very sharp at all settings, excellent contrast, very useful zoom range including true wide-angle at 16mm. Excellent VR. Best-kept secret for DX users.

28-200mm AF-G *** Of two samples, one was excellent and one poor, so watch for sample variations. Very good contrast. Not ideal hand-held due to lack of VR. Not ideal for tripod use due to design.

55-200mm VR **** Very good lens, very good sharpness and contrast, no fatal flaws. Cheap feel and feature-challenged, but has effective VR. A bargain.

70-300mm VR *** My sample had very poor performance above 200mm, good to very good elsewhere. Good contrast, generally very good focus performance. Good sports/action lens. Not good where critical sharpness is desired. Possibly a below-average sample.

4 Stars Solid lens, expensive, NO LENS Pouch!
The bad:

Major dissapointment not to have a lens bag, Nikon went cheap on this one.

The lens hood is metal and screw style mount, it is a hassle. You got to be very careful as it is metal to metal threads, so you better screw it in right to prevent permanent damage.

I bought it from Adorama and had no tamper seal, so keep an eye on that…

The good:

Excellent picture quality, very sharp, solid like a tank. I only wish the lens hood was bayonet style.

3 Stars Poor contrast and not sharp with wide open apertures.
Whenever I try or buy a lens, I perform a simple but fairly objective test on the lens: I photograph a bar code from a bottle.

I photograph the bottle’s bar code with the aperture wide open then stop down an f-stop at a time.

With the 85mm 1.8 lens at f1.8 aperture, the contrast is poor and bar code is fuzzy. At around f5.6, the bar code is perfectly sharp and the contrast is excellent.

I also own the Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens and it too is fuzzy and has poor contrast wide open. Only when the aperture is closed down several stops does one obtain very good sharpness and contrast. I think the Nikon f1.8 lens is a piece of junk.

I’ve also owned the 85mm 1.4 lens and it’s perfectly sharp at 1.4 but it is nearly 3x the price and a lot heavier.

I wish reviewers wouldn’t arbitrarily state that a lens is perfectly sharp wide-open without stating how they arrived at that conclusion.

If I could, I’d post my results as proof but Amazon won’t allow links and I can’t include images.

Buy/More Info

Sakar 52mm 55mm Close Up Filter Set 1 2 4 Diopters Magnification Kit Metal Rim and Glass

Availablein +1, +2, and +4 diopters for close-up photography. Close-up lenses are high-quality optical magnifying lenses which shorten the close-focusing distance of the lens. It allows the lens to go closer to the subject than before and to achieve a largerimage scale.
Use lenses individually or in combination for maximum effect
Depth-of-field is shallow so use as small an aperture as possible,
Diopters can be “stacked” for extreme magnification.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A satisfied consumer
I am very pleased with my recent purchase of Digital Concepts close-up Macro Filter Set. Still learning the skills to properly use them to thier full potential but have already had some great results. The price was really great compared to all others I looked at. I would highly recommend this set to anyone who would like to enter the world of very close or macro photos. I’m sure there are better , more expensive products out there, but for a novice you can’t beat it! I keep it in my camera bag at all times just to be prepared! A small tripod is highly recommended for these although handheld shots are still possible. I am thouroughly enjoying my set. Jerry Robertson

5 Stars Go for it !!
First of all, what would you except from a 7 bucks lense..sorry 4 filters in 7 bucks ? dont expect a high macro lense..seeing at the price its a must have filter..there should not be any hesitation buying this item..check some of my pics uploaded here..+10 worked great..if not macro- it will certainly increase the DOF for close up shoots..image quality is also acceptable…dont think too much..just go for it..

5 Stars Excellent Deal
I got shipped before estimated delivery schedule.

These work great with my D40 using 18-55mm. Specially +10 Lense. I guess I rare use others (i.e. +1, +2 & +4)

Anyways this is awesome at this price. I am much satisfied what I expected.

2 Stars Not really worth the buy
I don’t see a big boost using these close-up filters. The limitations to the close-up photography due to the camera’s minimum focus distance controls how close your can get to you subject for macro-photography. Using these is simply a means of telling yourself that you are doing macro- but unfortunately you are not getting anything significantly better than you would with just your camera. Best not to waste your money on this.

4 Stars Hard to beat for the money if you want to do Macro
If you don’t have a dedicated macro lens, or something like a 70-300mm lens with a macro mode, this is an awfully tempting deal. And for less then $10, it really is a good deal. The quality of the glass is more than adequate, and they do exactly what they are intended. The only problem I encountered was that my lens’ autofocus would generally not work with the +10 macro filter. However, if setting up macro shots, you should have no problem manually focusing by hand. The case the filters was shipped in was also not of great quality, and could see it scratching the glass if they had not been individually wrapped in plastic beforehand. This is a non-issue for me, as I have dedicated filter wallets, but for someone who will be using this to carry these around, use caution.

PROS:

+ Good quality glass filters

+ Great deal for macro photography

CONS:

- It’s still not as good as a macro lens

- Included filter wallet is sub-standard

Buy/More Info