85 mm lenses in general and Nikkor 85 2.0 AI and 85 1.8 AF in particular (reviews)

85 mm is my favourite focal length on a SLR. There are several reasons. One is perspective - it has been said that the field of view from an 85 is similar to how our eyes sees (our vision has of course a much wider angle, but this referes to the part we can concentrate on). I dont know if it is technically correct, but I have always thought images made with 85 mm lenses has a very pleasant, harmonic appearance. (Click on the images to view them larger, navigate with the pop-up arrows at the sides of the frame. The image above: Nikkor 85 2.0 AI, Nikon D300)

Another reason is the shallow depth of field and subject isolation. In general 85 mm lenses are fast, from F 1.2 to 2.0 in maximum aperture. The wide aperture and shallow DOF makes for bright viewfinders that are easy to focus. The brightness is ideal for viewfinders made for manual focus with split image and microprism screens, which usually works best up to F 2.8. Smooth manual focusing with subjects snapping in and out of focus in the bright viewfinder is a joy with these lenses. 
Nikkor 85 1.8 AF wide open at 1.8:

Another plus is that 85 mm lenses tend to be very sharp. If you stop down to 2.8 you can count on getting sharp images with beautiful isolation and bokeh. At F4-11 they usually are as good as it gets, compared to almost any lenses.
Nikkor 85 1.8 AF/D200:

100 percent crop (click on the image to see it in full size):

The strong points of the 85 mm does not end yet. The moderatly fast, F 1.7 to 2.0, models are small and light - a Nikkor 85 2.0 AI weighs around 320 g, and they have an ideal balance on camera, very slightly front heavy, which fits well with your left supporting hand. And - still talking about the 1.7 - 2.0 lenses - they are relatively inexpensive - you get a lot of bang for the buck in terms of speed and sharpness. Usability on a 35 mm film SLR or full frame DSLR is superb, a little less with an APS-C cropped sensor in my opinion, but more about that later.

The 85 is, as many people know, ideal for portraits. The perspective is natural, you get a little closer to the subject with the slight optical magnification (varies with the magnification of the viewfinder. Older, pre-AF, SLRs usually have larger viewfinders). It is easy to get the background out of focus and you dont intimidate the subject as you might do with a huge telezoom.
Nikkor 85 2.0 AI:

If you shoot sport in very low light, an 85 is often the lens that saves the situation. Faster than all other teles, you still can get a tight perspective, and if you have a presspass (or can move freely), you often can get close enough.
And the 85 is of course an excellent available light lens, for photojournalism and street photography.
Nikkor 85 2.0 AI:

The first encounter with 85 mm I had was with the 85 1.7 Minolta Rokkor lens (see the article “Gear nostalgia“, which BTW is not quite finished yet…). One of my all-time favourite lenses.
Sports photography with Rokkor 85 1.7. Swedish skistar Ingemar Stenmark and soccer pro Bjorn Andersson scoring his first goal for FC Bayern.

A few years later when I switched to Pentax MX system, I decided to try the 100 mm instead of a 85, knowing how popular the 105 mm was among professionals (mostly due to the legendary Nikkor 105 2.5). But I never really liked the 100 2.8 as much as my previous 85, although it was fine optically.
When I later switched to Nikon I got an 85 again, and it felt like coming home. The images from the Nikon FE and the 85 2.0 AI Nikkor with Kodachrome 64 slide film were beautiful. The 85 became one of the bread-and-butter lenses for the follwing years when I worked as a professional for daily papers (Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet).

Worker at a steelmill, fearing unemployment. Nikkor 85 2.0 AI.

Fast forward to 2002 when I picked up photography again, after a long break of about two decades…, getting a Nikon D100. The Nikkor 85 1.8 AF was one of the first lenses I got after the 24-85 kit lens.
However, on the DX body with the 1.5 crop factor, the magic was sort of gone for me, and I dont use the 85 as much as I did on 35 mm film. The field of view is like a 127 mm, and if you are one of the many who liked 135 mm lenses (big sellers in the old days), you might like the 85 on a DX.
I have tried using a 50 mm as a substitute (FOV 75 mm equivalent on a DX), but it does not work for me. When shooting portraits you dont want a smaller than life image in the viewfinder, and the subject isolation and bokeh is not as nice. So despite the narrow field of view I think the 85 mm is the best portrait focal length even on a cropped sensor.

After this long introduction, lets go over the subjects of this review, the 85 2.0 AI and the 85 1.8 AF, used on Nikon D300 and D90 cameras.

Nikkor 85 2.0 AI
I think it is fascinating that this more than 28 years old lens still can be used with great functionality on many high end Nikon DSLRs (D200, D300, D1H/X, D2H/X, D3/X). The smoothness of the focus ring and the manual aperture speaks about the mechanical quality, although some samples of the 85 2.0 exhibit a low noise, that sounds like a there is some tension in a spring when focusing. The lens is small and compact, almost looking as a normal 50 mm lens on a D300.

Nikkor 85 1.8 AF
The 85 1.8 AF is larger and more heavy (455 g vs 320g, 62 mm filter thread vs 52 mm on the 85 2.0), but still rather small compared to most normal zooms and to other short teles from Nikon, like the 85 1.4 or the 105 2.8 VR. Here it is mounted on a Nikon D90.

In use
Focusing by eye with the 85 2.0 is possible on the D300, but I tend to double check the focus confirmation light in the lower left corner of the viewfinder. I would have prefered that the center AF brackets was used or some other solution so you could keep your eye on the center of the frame. Compared to an old split image/micro prism screen, you dont work as fast or confident. My guess is that a FF DSLR would be clearly better in this regard with the larger viewfinder and shorter DOF.
When shooting moving objects an AF lens is far more convinient, but otherwise manual focusing is a more involving exerience in a way. The same goes for the handling the aperture ring instead of using a dial. You are more aware of when you are stopping down or opening up in a directly physical way.
Aperture prefered auto exposure, which probably is the most convinient way to use the AI lenses in most cases, is a good compromise of automation and involvement in my opinion. You need to be aware of what you are doing, which generally is a good thing, I think.
The 85 1.8 AF has the old screwdrive auto focusing, and the sound is a little disturbing. Without doing any proper tests, the ultrasonic focusing 70-200VR AF-S lens feels far faster in AF. Lets hope that Nikon updates the 85 mm lenses to AF-S soon. One thing worth mentioning is that the 5 1.8 AF is the lens that exposes most brightly of all the lenses I have. I constantly set the exposure to -0.7 with this lens.

Image quality
When I used the 85 2.0 with my film SLRs I had the feeling that it was usable wide open, quite sharp at 2.8 and very sharp from F4 to F11. But many old lenses that performs well on film does not look so good on digital. The emulsion of film is more forgiving and reflexions from the sensor can degrade image quality. New coating seems to be obligatory when lenses originally designed for film are adapted to digital.
So let us see. 85 2.0 AI wide open at 2.0 (Click on the images to see them larger):

Here the slightly dreamy looks works rather good. But here is a thougher test, and now we enter the 85 1.8 AF in the equation.

100 percent crops, F 2.0, 85 mm 1.8 AF to the left, 85 2.0 AI wide open at F 2.0, to the right (click on the image to see it in full size).

The image from the 85 1.8 AF shows rather strong CA, but is anyway much better than the 85 2.0 AI image, which is hardly usable.
Now a test at F 2.8. The image:

100 percent crops. Nikkor 85 1.8 AF to the left, Nikkor 85 2.0 AI to the left. Click on the image to see it in full size.

Closing down a stop to 2.8 makes wonders for the old AI lens. Now it catches up and slightly surpasses the 85 1.8 AF in sharpness. The CA is virtually gone from the 2.0 AI, while the 1.8 AF still has some traces left.

At 5.6 both lenses are impressivly sharp.

100 percent crops, 85 1.8 AF to the left, 85 2.0 AI to the right. Click on the image to see it in full size.

Very clean, beautiful rendering of details from both lenses.

There is more to a lens than sheer resolution and sharpness. Neither of these lenses has Nikons ED-glass, which makes the contrast high and gives images snap even in the low cost kit lenses. When I got the 18-70 kit lens some years ago and compared to the 85 1.8 AF, I was surprised to see than the low cost zoom lens actually delivered higher saturation and contrast than the prime 85 1.8 AF. However, after closer examination it was clear that the 85 1.8 showed more details and had a cleaner look at 100 percent magnification. In terms of microcontrast and rendering of fine structures and color tones, both 85 delivers, but as in many other cases regarding the “look”, these qualities can be hard to quantify. Never the less that is what gives lenses character, and is better judged in real life images than in sterile test charts or test scenes in studio light.
Here are a few walk-around images with the 85 2.0 AI:






A few from the 85 1.8 AF:

Conclusion:
The 85 2.0 AI is soft and dreamy wide open at 2.0, but improves greatly when closed down one stop. Excellent sharpness at medium aperture. The compact format and low weight makes is very interesting as a candidate to use on a FF camera like D700 in my opinion. Why? Because I think that the 1.075g plus a lens that a D700 weighs is on border of being to heavy for walk-around use. Together with the small 85 AI the combo is 1.390g, comparable for instance to a D90 with the 18-200VR lens (1.324g). I also believe that a FF camera would make the lens easier to focus manually and, of course, provide the “right” field of view.
If you are interested in shooting video with a DSLR like the Nikon D90 or future models, a plus factor for the AI lenses is that they are the most suited for high end video work since they offer complete manual aperture control and smooth manual focusing. The small video clip on the front page of this blog is filmed mainly with the Nikkor 85 2.0 AI. The downside is that D90 dont offer metering with the AI lenses when you shot regular photos. You have to switch to manual mode, “guesstimate” the exposure, check the LCD, and adjust.
The 85 1.8 AF, is sharp, relatively inexpensive and compact. The screw drive focus makes it feel a little outdated (and it does not work with D40/D40x/D60), but it must be considered a good buy anyway, as long as there is no AF-S alternative. As I mentioned before, I think 85 mm is the best focal length for portraits even on DX cameras. The “look” you can achieve with 85 mm lenses is something that cant be replicated with digital compacts or superzoom bridge cameras with their small sensors. And that look, with gentle subject isolation, is often what makes DSLRs stand out, no matter how high resolution the compacts/bridge cameras may have.