Nikon 85mm 1.4 AFD

badboy1984 · 26 Oct 2016

I've got this lens in my camera bag for a long time but hardly ever use it because I'm very lazy and just use the trusty Nikon 28-70 f2.8 AFS. The zoom lens AF fail so it gone back to Nikon for repair. This force me to use the 85mm f1.4 AFD on some shoot. Can't believe I've not use this lens much. Excellent sharpness (better then all my lens like 50mm f1.8 AFS, 28-70 f2.8 and 70-200 f2.8 VR1), and the AF is pretty quick. The AF is just noisy because is a AFD lens. I don't need super fast AF anyway on portrait shoots.

It seems like this is my go to lens now

andy1868 · 26 Oct 2016

It's a great lens that often gets overlooked these days due to the G variant I think. I however love mine, nice and sharp, beautiful out of focus areas, well built and was a steal at around 60% of the cost of a 1.4G

Mine does feel quick to focus though, nearly as quick if not as quick as my 24-70 AFS I reckon

badboy1984 · 27 Oct 2016

I think the speed is pretty quick, but because the lens is AFD the focus is pretty loud which make you think it is slow ......

I got my for £550 used in mpb long time ago. The AFD lens is good and they last forever ...... I like the AFD primes because it have an aperture ring. I use it for video stuff as well. The handling on AFG lens sucks in my opinion for video work.

snerkler · 27 Oct 2016

andy1868 said:
It's a great lens that often gets overlooked these days due to the G variant I think. I however love mine, nice and sharp, beautiful out of focus areas, well built and was a steal at around 60% of the cost of a 1.4G

Mine does feel quick to focus though, nearly as quick if not as quick as my 24-70 AFS I reckon

Must be something wrong with your 24-70mm then

andy1868 · 27 Oct 2016

That may be the case :lol:

both are pretty quick though to be fair, I'll have to try a proper comparison

PaulButler · 27 Oct 2016

snerkler said:
Must be something wrong with your 24-70mm then

Not really I'd say, depends on which body the 85 is used on, if it is one of the pro bodies the motors in those are extremely fast, with the old 80-200 you can get "torque steer" with them

badboy1984 · 27 Oct 2016

I use my 85mm AFD on the D3 and D700. Is fast on the D3. It just felt slow because of the motor sound ....

snerkler · 27 Oct 2016

andy1868 said:
That may be the case both are pretty quick though to be fair, I'll have to try a proper comparison

PaulButler said:
Not really I'd say, depends on which body the 85 is used on, if it is one of the pro bodies the motors in those are extremely fast, with the old 80-200 you can get "torque steer" with them

badboy1984 said:
I use my 85mm AFD on the D3 and D700. Is fast on the D3. It just felt slow because of the motor sound ....

Obviously my comment was a bit tongue in cheek, hence the emoticons

However, the 24-70mm is the fastest focussing lens I have ever used, it's blazingly fast. Faster than my 70-200mm VRII and faster than any prime I've used (all on a D750)

Swanseajack · 28 Oct 2016

Some of these older lenses are quicker to focus than the newer AFS lenses, as the D lenses rely on your camera body to drive the lens (camera dependent). There was an article in DP a while ago on the very subject and it made sense as the motor/juice in the camera is more powerful than the SWM in the newer lenses.

badboy1984 · 28 Oct 2016

My subject haven't moan about the time I take to focus when I use the 85mm 1.4 AFD. I guess is pretty quick. I use it on both D3 and D700 and seems fast.