I've been shooting with this lens for a number of years now, and it is, and basically always has been, my go-to lens for portrait work. At 1.4 the IQ isn't stellar... its good, but not magazine cover worthy. Once you get to f2 and up, this lens really begins to shine. Most shoulder-up portraits I shoot with this lens I shoot at f5.6 anyway, where the lens is flawless. Fantastic color, contrast, sharpness, with a bokeh that is so clean and fluid, that with people that know to look for it, it ...
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In low light situations it is very nice to have an f/1.4 lens which can actually be used wide open: When a lens with f/2.8 requires a 1/15s exposure, the f/1.4 lens goes with 1/60s. Getting sharp images at ISO 1600 and f/1.4 means a new dimension in photography. Whenever I have to work in low light situations this is the lens that has to be in the camera bag or better on the camera. There are plenty of situations [boxing fights, ice hockey games, concerts, social events] where f/2.8 lenses just don't cut it [especially tele lenses]. Of course, one can always use a flash but this is often not allowed and, more important, would create a completely different atmosphere.
The Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4D lens is a portrait photographer's dream, especially for head shots. It has become my favorite portrait lens. The out-of-focus areas in images taken with this lens sometimes look mind-blowing - smooth, milky, creamy, out-of-this-world. 85mm is a good focal length for head shots: Shorter lenses produce distortions [below 50mm] which don't look very flattering and longer lenses make faces rather flat [the "Tele Look", above 150mm]. The images at 85mm look very three-dimensional.
The downside of it is the price tag. This lens is rather expensive considering it has no AF-S [silent wave motor] and no VR [vibration reduction] and considering it is still not perfect at f/1.4.
There is an alternative to this lens: The Nikon AF 85mm f/1.8 [D or non-D version]. At about a third of the price it is almost as good as the f/1.4 lens optically. In several tests I have compared images taken with the two lenses and it sometimes was difficult to tell from which lens they came. The out-of-focus areas do look more pleasing with the f/1.4 lens. If you use the Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4D at f/1.4-f/4 the images are magic. Only few lenses come close to it in this respect. But then again, if you can control the background, this difference between the two lenses is not so important.
One thing I've never seen published is the somewhat cool character of the images obtained with the f/1.4 lens: I've observed a slight color shift between the 85mm f/1.8 and the 85mm f/1.4D lens in certain situations. This might be caused by a special coating of the lens and is hardly a problem, it makes the f/1.4D lens even more magic. Mechanically, the f/1.4 lens is a better performer than the f/1.8 lens. For the extra money you get a metal finish and a very fine manual focus ring. In combination with a Fuji S2 Pro camera, the autofocus is rather slow with both 85mm lenses. More on the difference between the two lenses can be read
here . Performance on a full frame camera [Nikon D3]: For a first look at the performance of the Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4D on the Nikon D3 full frame camera click here . Vignetting is very well controlled on a full frame sensor: There is almost no vignetting between f/2.8 and f/8. Fantastic! At around f/1.4, vignetting is clearly visible but shouldn't be a problem for low light applications [concerts, street photography]. The magic continues...
Rating for the Nikon AF 85 mm f/1.4D lens [Maximum: 5, Minimum: 1]: Image quality wide open:
4.5 Overall image quality: 5 "Bokeh": 5 Build quality: 5
Focal length comparison
Lens construction for the Nikon AF 85mm f/1.8D:
Lens construction for the Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4D:
Lens construction for the Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.4G:
External reviews [Nikon AF 85mm f/1.8[D] / Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4D]: rbfotografia.com.br [f/1.4D & f/1.8D] [cache: 1 ] imagepower.de [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] naturfotograf.com [f/1.4D / f/1.8D] [cache: 1 2 ] [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] photozone.de [I] [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 2 3 ] photozone.de [II] [f/1.8D] [cache: 1 2 3 ] ryanbrenizer.livejournal.com [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] mir.com [I] [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] mir.com [II] [f/1.8D] [cache: 1 ] equipment.dearingfilm.com [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] dicksonphotography.co.uk [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] slrlensreview.com [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] slrlensreview.com [f/1.8D] [cache: 1 ] soerenhese.de [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] bythom.com [f/1.4D] [cache: 1 ] nikonjin.com [f/1.4D & f/1.8D] [cache: 1 ]
imaging.nikon.com f/1.4D development story - from "The Thousand and One Nights" [cache: 1 ]
*] Contact me if you know interesting reviews not listed here. The cache numbers in parenthesis next to the links lead to cached pdf files [just in case the original links don't work anymore]. The files usually only represent parts of the original contents from January 2010.