Lens Test Glossary     About these reviews

find them used here

find them used here

Introduction

This is a magnificent lens. It's sharp, compact, fast and extremely well made. I personally prefer the 85mm focal length over other lenses; it's just the way I usually see the world.

Specifications

It has five elements in five groups.

It has a seven-bladed diaphragm stopping down to f/22.

It focusses down to 0.85m or 2.8,' which gets you to about the same reproduction ratio as most other Nikkor manual focus lenses.

It takes 52mm filters.

It is 2.5" (64mm) around by 2.4" (61mm) long and weighs 11 oz (310 g).

It takes an HS-10 hood. I've never bothered with it, and heck, you can use any ordinary rubber hood from a normal lens, too.

Performance

This is a very good lens. I see no lateral color. On the bench it has a tad of axial chromatic aberration not seen on film.

It is very sharp. Here's the lowdown by aperture:

f/2.0: Sharp and contrasty all over; the best performance I've seen with any lens at f/2. There is minimal falloff. At 22x there is just a little bit less sharpness wide open than at smaller apertures, and a little bit of softness in the corners compared to smaller apertures. This is outstanding performance.
f/2.8: Looks great! At 22x it's still a tiny bit less sharp than other apertures, but still outstanding.
f/4: Still outstanding and improving both center and corners
f/5.6 - f/8: These are the optimum apertures in the center of the image.
f/8 - f/11: These are the optimum apertures for the corners of the image.
f/16 - f/22: Some random underexposure with FA camera in auto modes, hold the aperture preview button down while releasing the shutter (or starting selftimer) and this goes away.

It has few ghosts or flare issues on film, even though I can see a large blue blob on the opposite side of the image through the viewfinder when pointed directly at the bright sun. This is stupid; I'm surprised I didn't melt the matte plastic viewfinder screen. There is a point sized ghost on the opposite side of the image at apertures larger than f/8.

There is no distortion.

Recommendations

This is the sort of lens that makes you want to throw away your zoom. It's tiny, it's twice as fast as even the very fastest of zooms, and has great optical quality on all fronts. It feels very, very solid because it is. The AI-s series of manual focus lenses are the best Nikon has ever made mechanically.

Unlike other manual focus lenses, this one seems to be holding its value used and goes for about $250, which is what I paid for mine (used) in 1994. The earlier AI version is the same lens but will cost you less. I don't think you can get these new anymore.

Cheapskate as I am, it would be one thing if you could get them used for $150, but since they seem to be valuable you may want to consider an 85mm f/1.8D AF instead, which you can get brand new for $330.

The tradeoff you make is that the AF lens is bigger and plasticier and takes 62mm filters. The AF lens give you full matrix metering and exposure mode compatibility with all AF and manual cameras, but the 85/2 AI-s will not give matrix metering on cameras other than the F4 and FA. On the other hand, the 85/2 focusses sweeter and smoother than sex itself on manual focus cameras, and the 85AF is a grindy, sloppy beast in your fingers by comparison. Either is a good choice