Disappointed at the Nikkor 85mm f1.4/G
25 Dec 2012 -
So I bought the ~$500 85mm f1.4/G lens from Nikon, supposedly a high-end lens with their new "Nano Crystal Coat" and rounded blades for superb bokeh. I've used it in a studio setting where bokeh is of no issue, and I've been fairly disappointed by it in terms of sharpness. My last shoot was of kids, so I used a smaller aperture (f5.6) in order to lengthen the focus length in order to handle moving subjects and still be able to get enough in focus. Here are some pics to compare them:
As you can see, the 85mm isn't very sharp. And it wasn't just this shot, the majority of images were poorly focused, some worse, some better. This shot is representative of the overall focusing result though.
My favorite lens, the 50mm 1.4/G which, as you can see, is a lot sharper. Pretty big difference from the 85mm
But the clear studio winner here is the Sigma 28mm f1.8, which incidentally is the cheapest of the three. Superb sharpness and speed.
Note that the aperture is the same for each lens, and the 85mm even has a lower ISO than the other two, yet still has poorer sharpness.
I'm sort of wondering what I'm doing wrong with this one?
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