Nikon portrait lenses - Ai-S versus AF-D (135/2,85/1.4)

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Here's the same lens at f/2.8 to clean up any remaining LoCA - but you have to look pretty hard to see anything, even in an example like this.</p><div></div>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>(Apologies for missing the focus points a bit on the above image - it's hard to focus reliably on a black statue under dim lighting when hand-holding a 3kg lens...)</p>

<p>Finally, here's the leg case (well, the skirt just above the leg - the legs were out of frame) on the 200 f/2 to show what it should look like. If the 135mm behaved like this, I'd not have bought a 200 f/2. (The Voigtlander APO lenses and possibly the 150mm Sigma f/2.8 macros can do similar tricks, but not lose the background quite so well.)</p>

<p>That's just dragged the reputation of a couple of very good lenses through the mud by making them look bad (depending on how picky you are). Again, the 135 DC is a very good lens if you avoid monochrome transitions in the out-of-focus area, stop down, or shoot in black and white. The Samyang is very good until you compare it with a lens that cost fifteen times as much. For what it's worth, I believe the 85mm f/1.4 AF-S has LoCA behaviour almost as bad as the 135mm DC's (from the images I've seen), comparing f/1.4 with f/2. I can't speak for the AF-D 85mm f/1.4, since I'm apparently one of the few people who let the focal plane reach the edge of the image and who won't pay the going rate of the AF-D for blurry edges. Both the f/1.4 Nikkors are exceptionally good lenses used within their limits.</p>

<p>But I hope all that helps!</p>

<div></div>

[rastislav__virik]

<p>Jose and Adnrew,thank you for the effort with the pictures,85 look acceptable but 135 fringes really too much. I have same problem with my Ais 200/4,when I shoot BW film it doesn't matter but in a moment when I mount it on a digital it annoys a shit out of me as these LoCAs are really hard to correct in PC and also I've read many reviews how great this lens is. Or maybe it's a bad sample,I don't know. But I'm wondering how would this DC be in comparison with AIs version. 200/2 is an alternative too but I think that's too long for the portraits and on Dx too long.</p>

[rastislav__virik]

<p>Thanks John for your opinion, did 135/2 Ais had those nasty color fringes too? I know every fast lens must have some ,but not so much that it's that distracting.<br>

Thanks</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Rastislav - glad to help. The 200 f/2 is really a bit longer than I want as well (on FX), but it's useful for candids. If you can find a 125mm f/2.5 Voigtlander APO-Lanthar (see photozone's review) then it'll give you no colour fringing at a shorter focal length, but they're very hard to find - otherwise the 150mm Sigma would be my next recommendation for losing the background.<br />

<br />

But if you're not going for pathological conditions then, as you say, the Samyang is pretty good - I can't vouch for the build quality (I've no complaints, except that one originally turned up without working electronics; the replacement has been fine), but you could buy three for the price of an f/1.4 AF-D... I've not tried any other 85mm lens, so I only have third-party reports of LoCA.<br />

<br />

I'd meant to show my 135mm f/2.8 AI for comparison - but obviously it's much easier to be LoCA-free at f/2.8 than at f/2 or f/1.4 (and the f/2.8 lens could be better above f/4), and it can't lose the background like the big boys. KR reviewed the 135mm f/2 AI/AI-s and seemed to think it's got appreciable LoCA, although since he doesn't seem as fussed by the effect as I am he doesn't make as much of it. It's also possible that the 105 f/2 DC is slightly better-behaved than the 135 - I get the impression it's slightly sharper, at least.<br />

<br />

For what it's worth, I've tried fixing up the LoCA in DxO, and the fringes from the 135mm are beyond software fixing (whereas it does a relatively good job on, say, my 28-200). I've rescued images by manually smudging the chroma channels in LAB, but it's tedious and not perfect.<br />

<br />

When the DC lens works right, it does a beautiful job of smoothing the background - but it's unfortunate that you need to be so aware of the background (or at least, transition regions of the DoF) in deciding whether it can be used, given that the reason I wanted this lens was to make messy backgrounds go away. Good luck with whatever you get - and I hope I've not just ruined any chance I may have had of selling my DC lens!</p>

[michael_bradtke]

<p>Andrew<br>

Just wondering if you have had your lens checked out. My copy of it is no where near that bad.<br>

I am just wondering if you might have a decentered element</p>

[john_narsuitus]

<p>I have tested the following Nikon lenses that can be used for portraits on a 35mm camera:</p>

<p>75-150mm f/3.5 Series E<br>

85mm f/1.8<br>

105mm f/2.5<br>

105mm f/2.8 micro<br>

180mm f/2.8<br>

80-200mm f/2.8</p>

<p>All make excellent portrait lenses. The optical differences between them are very subtle and personal taste is probably the most important factor as to which one is preferred. I personally prefer the 105mm micro because it is also easy to use for jewelry and body part close-ups.</p>

<p><a href="

.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Michael - thanks for the thought. I've not had it officially checked (I could ask Nikon nicely); when I first got it, I did post an image on photo.net asking whether the colour fringing was normal for this lens, and I was told it was. This <i>is</i> a pretty pathological case intended to make the other lenses look good - a harsh black/white transition just outside the depth of field seen at 1:1 - and the descriptions I've heard of this lens suggest that the behaviour is intentional. If you ensure that the whole subject is inside the depth of field and that the background is well out of focus, it's a brilliant lens; it's only if the depth of field doesn't entirely cover the subject that it all goes wrong.<br />

<br />

The feedback I've got when grumbling about the LoCA has been that it's fine so long as you shoot at f/4 (which it more or less is), and the lens appears to be sharp - although it does sometimes miss focus (something that others have reported with this lens and is mentioned in the manual) - and symmetrical which I assumed meant it was optically okay. There <i>is</i> a small bubble in the glass, but I can't imagine it would have this effect. If you don't pixel peep, it's fine; if you're trying to produce pixel-perfect images of a friend's wedding dance with the background blurred and they have blonde hair, colour fringes at f/2 are a big pain. I bought it partly to shoot people playing tiddlywinks (which involves a white mat and a dimly-lit and messy background) so I hit the worst case a lot. If I just took an image of a model's face with a shallow DoF, chances are all would be well.<br />

<br />

That said, if yours is much better (and it's not just that you've sensibly avoided this kind of torture test) then I'll drop by Nikon UK and ask them to take a look, if only before I sell it. I know it's supposed to <i>have</i> LoCA (photozone's test shows this), but it's hard to know how bad it's supposed to be. KR's images taken with the 85mm f/1.4 AF-S have what I'd consider to be horrendous LoCA, but he didn't seem troubled by it, so I always just assumed I was picky.</p>

[michael_bradtke]

<p>Andrew.<br>

I dont usually shhot such high contrast stuff as what you did there. But even so I do not see as much LoCa as you are showing.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Thanks, Michael. I'll see whether Nikon will charge me to comment on whether this is worth investigating.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>My 105/2.5 is my all-time favorite portrait lens, used for everything the past 30 years from newspaper headshots to studio and wedding portraits. I also have the 85, which I use in tighter quarters. And I have the 135 (not the defocus version) but the focal length is longer than I like for portraits, especially inside. These are all MF and AI I believe. (85 could be pre-AI) As far as MF vs AF, that's not an issue for me in portaits. For portraits I focus on the closest eye and I've seen a lot more misses when AF sensor has missed the spot than I ever saw just focusing manually. As for sharpness, chromatic aberration, etc., I think that misses the point. These are all sharp lenses. A portrait needs to be in focus like any other picture, but I think obsessing over degrees of lens sharpness is irrelevant for portraits. Lots of people have spent years putting gauze and diffusion filters over their Hasselblad lenses because they are TOO sharp for flattering portaits. For me, if it says Nikon on it and it's not one of the cheap plastic consumer lenses they're diluting the brand with today, it's more than good enough.</p>

[jose_angel]

<p>Thanks Andrew; from what I see, the IF design doesn`t harm the Samyang. It`d be needed to perform a side by side test to check which one is better, but I suspect that at best, the Nikkor will achieve the same performance. </p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>What I learned about the Zeiss 85/1.4 and I suspect the Nikon 85/1.4 Ais is very similar is that from f1.4 to f2 their image quality is directed at creating pleasing portraits with a slight softness (not unlike that of the a 50/1.8 and 85/1.8 lenses that I have owned in the past) and with nice soft rendering of out-of-focus foregrounds and backgrounds that the cheaper lenses cannot duplicate. Then by f2.8 the Zeiss was the sharpest lens I have ever had, and again I suspect the Nikon 85/1.4 would sharpen significantly as well from f2.8 to f5.6.</em><br>

<em>I anticipate the purchase of a Nikon 85/1.4 AIS sometime in the next two years, myself, and I highly recommend this one. </em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Wide open the Nikkor is extremely soft and with a glare effect, making it difficult to use under certain circumstances (direct sunlight). It`s a nice effect, but you have to know that it is there. At f2.8, the lens start to work as a "normal" one.</p>

<p>I think the 50/1.8 and 85/1.8 doesn`t have this kind of softness. I didn`t tested them under this very same conditions (I don`t use to shoot under this conditions) but I think they are simply soft, "cheaper like", as you say.</p>

<p>Out of focus foregrounds use to be nice in many lenses, backgrounds not so much. The 85/1.4AiS doesn`t have a specially nice bokeh to my taste; I`d say it`s very close to the 85/1.8 and many other Nikkors. Some call it "creamery" and "buttery"... check below.</p>

<p>It certainly gets sharper from f2.8 on, and at f8 is really sharp. Surprisingly, I find it to be reasonably good for landscapes, focusing at larger distances.</p>

<p>It is one of the most beautiful Nikkors, the block of glass is impressive, superb mechanical construction... but all in all, next time I think I`ll take my 105VR again.</p>

[jose_angel]

<blockquote>

<p><em>Some say that 85mm f/1.4 Ai-s is a king,but I've also read that 85mm f/1.4D is sharper and has a better bokeh.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>There are too many kings out there. ;)<br /> I`d not be surprised if the AFD version is sharper, even <em>much sharper</em>. The AFD is a 9 elements 8 groups construction while the AiS is a 7/5. Rorslet also mentions it; the AiS is only sharper from f5.6 on, usually nothing interesting for someone who is looking for the fastest lens.<br /> About bokeh, I bet the AFD will be better but for a small margin. From what I have seen, the outlining of the highlight rings <em>wide open</em> are not as marked, but still clear. Nice, but not a huge deal to me. The difference could be on the out of focus areas, that look clearly softer in the AFD.<br /> If I were buying for one of these, I`d personally go for the AFD.</p>

[jose_angel]

<p>Just three more pics, all wide open with the 85/1.4AiS.</p><div></div>

[jose_angel]

<p>Bokeh, wide open.</p><div></div>

[jose_angel]

<p>Highlight rings, as usual.</p><div></div>

[rastislav__virik]

<p>Jose,thanks for the pics,bokeh doesn't really seem to be that perfect but pic 2 seem pretty sharp for wide open. I was almost sure to go for Ais but you have a strong point about AF-D so I'm starting to consider it either and the price difference between those two is almost none.</p>

[steve_bellayr]

<p>You inquired about portrait lenses not sharpness. There is a distinct difference! A sharp lens is not preferable for female portraits while for males a sharp lens is preferable. That is a rule of thumb. Also, when shooting portraits you want to shoot predominately at f4 or f5.4. As far as sharpness is concerned the 105mm f2.5 Ai-S is outstanding and deserves all the accolades that are bestowed upon it. As for a softer lens the 85mm f2.0 Ai-s is sufficient for female portrature. Again, remember women do not like to see or the imperfectures of their face highlighted by a sharp lens. As far as the D-40 is concerned it is an outdated model and does not support all the current line-up of lenses and furthermore it is not full frame which is a different than film. Go to <a href="http://www.naturfotograf.com">www.naturfotograf.com</a> for a review of Nikon lenses.</p>

[ferdi_s]

<p>Some AI-S are great lenses for portrait (35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.2, 105 f2.5, 85mm f1.4, 135mm f2, 180mm f2.8, 200mm f2). I have some of them. The problem to me is it is hard to manual focus accurately moving objects. If you are good at MF, they are worth every penny. I even think that my 105mm 2.5 AIS produces more interesting background (portrait wide open) than my 105mm 2 DC. I just cannot focus fast enough for my 21-month old baby. So, for moving objects, I go back to my AFD/AFS lenses.</p>

[steve_bellayr]

<p>Another series of lenses for Nikon that you might look into are the Zeiss ZF series. They are manual focus. </p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<blockquote>You inquired about portrait lenses not sharpness. There is a distinct difference! A sharp lens is not preferable for female portraits while for males a sharp lens is preferable. That is a rule of thumb.</blockquote>

 

<p>I'm never very impressed by the argument that portrait lenses can afford to be soft, or that nobody cares about wide-open performance at the edges of the frame. In a digital age, softening skin is relatively easy, even without achieving it with a large light source; sharpening the output from a soft lens (without artifacts) is harder. It's true that a lot of wide-aperture portraits place the subject near the middle and blur everything around, but there are also times when the focal plane intersects with something in the scene that's visible to the edge of the frame (without necessarily drawing the eye out of the frame), and the kind of smear produced by a lens with soft edges can be distracting. It's fine to say "I happen never to take shots for which these lens defects matter", or at least "I can live with these defects for the kind of shots I take", but not to claim that they aren't defects at all or that nobody else could care. (Not to bite Steve's head off unduly - I see these arguments a lot. I've seen worse claims; KR claims that LoCA with green fringes in the background makes foliage look better.)<br />

<br />

There are lenses that are deliberately designed to be soft - Canon's 135mm f/2.8 SF and the Nikon DC lenses when set to a DC number smaller than their aperture - but these lenses also have a "sharp mode" for which softness can be turned off. I concede that smooth bokeh is more important in many portrait lenses than absolute sharpness, but that doesn't mean that they weren't intended to be sharp - priorities are one thing, but I doubt there's ever been a lens which was deliberately designed to have only poor microcontrast.</p>

 

<blockquote>I just cannot focus fast enough for my 21-month old baby. So, for moving objects, I go back to my AFD/AFS lenses.</blockquote>

 

<p>I have to say that one reason I got my 135mm DC lens is that I struggled to get moving targets with my f/2.8 AI 135mm. I was shooting a friend's wedding (as a guest) a couple of years back with the AI lens and a borrowed Sigma 50mm. People standing around and giving speeches were no problem, but getting the bridge and groom walking into the reception was a write-off, even knowing where they'd be. If only trap focus worked with manual focus lenses (but I suspect Nikon want you to buy new glass). Unfortunately, I've not found the 135 DC's autofocus to be reliable either, when used with DC enabled - although it's not totally useless. Since I've been shopping in the last couple of years, these days I'd either do the sensible thing and use an 80-200, or the not-sensible-thing and use my 200 f/2. I intend to keep the 135 AI as my "fits in my pocket portrait lens" though - so long as the subject holds still I'm very happy with it.</p>

[rastislav__virik]

<p>I agree with you Andrew,It's not a problem to make pic look soft in photoshop and I don't like that hazy dreamy effect either,and 12mp camera has not enough resolution to show skin artifacts so much and so 135 film. Maybe hasselblad H4D has that ability but that's completely another level.</p>

[rastislav__virik]

<p>I could really use a bokeh comparison between 85s to see it on my own. If somebody has them both then please,please.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>If it helps, Photozone has bokeh images for the AF-D and AF-S 85mm f/1.4s, and also the Samyang (on Canon, which looks slightly worse than I'd expect - but then I got it expecting it to be no worse than the Nikkors and cheaper, rather than actually being an improvement). KR has a review of the AI 85mm and mentions the existence of spherochromatism, but I don't think there's an explicit bokeh shot. Bjørn mentions LoCA for the AF-D and relative softness for the AI, but obviously no images.</p>

[rastislav__virik]

<p>I've already read all these things,and seen lots of pictures at flickr but still can't decide,KR has an article about sharpness comparison between 85s with nice pictures,but as a portrait lens I care about bokeh too,AF-D's borders are never sharp but if it has more pleasing bokeh it's thing I can live with. And with 135mm I've decided to go for AF version. DC feature seem to have nice touch to the pictures and everyone says that at F/2 it's much sharper that it's predecessor. Price difference is not so much here,AI-s in mint shape sells from 800-1000 and AF-D about 1000-1100 used but like new.</p>