I’m still playing around with this lens, but so far, it’s been fun! At 8mm, you get a circular fisheye with a whopping 180° angle of view when you mount this lens on a FX-format Nikon DSLR. Point this lens straight up and you will get subjects both in front of you and behind you in the frame! Yep, you’ll want to be careful of getting your feet or tripod legs in the shot with this lens. Continue reading First Impressions of the Nikon 8-15mm Fisheye Zoom Nikkor→
As you may know, I’m testing the new Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED Nikkor portrait lens. One of the main questions I’ve been asked over on my Facebook page is, “how does it compare to the 105mm micro-Nikkor?”
It’s a fair question, as I’ve long listed the 105mm f/2.8 AFS G VR micro-Nikkor as an excellent portrait lens. For this purpose, at least to me, there are really only two discriminators: VR (stabilization) and aperture. Continue reading Nikon 105mm f/1.4E vs. 105mm f/2.8 AFS G VR Macro→
I’ve had a few more opportunities to shoot with the new Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED Nikkor, so I thought I’d post some sample images here. Most of these were shot wide-open, because that’s what this lens is all about. Simply put, if you’re into shots with shallow depth of field and incredible subject isolation, then this is a tremendous lens.
The lens is quite sharp wide-open, but you have to be SUPER CAREFUL about your focus point because DOF is incredibly shallow (you knew that, of course).
Use AF Fine-Tuning to make sure you get the focus point dead-on with this lens. Any slight front or back-focus will be very noticeable!
There is light fall-off at f/1.4 but I actually like it because it creates a natural vignette effect in portraits. Adobe Lightroom now includes a lens correction setting for the 105mm f/1.4E, but I almost think that I like it better with vignette correction disabled.
This is a big lens (82mm front filter). It’s not something I’d carry around as part of my regular kit unless I were a portrait/wedding photographer (then it would live permanently in my bag).
Nikon’s newest portrait lens: 105mm f/1.4E ED Nikkor
Today, Nikon announced a new fast prime portrait lens, the AF-S 105mm f/1.4E ED Nikkor. This is a super-fast lens that should deliver amazing bokeh when used at or near its maximum f/1.4 aperture. It is designed to cover FX (full-frame) Nikon sensors, but will approximate a 161mm telephoto lens if you use it on a DX Nikon DSLR, such as the Nikon D500. Continue reading Nikon 105mm f/1.4 Portrait Lens Announced→
A Lightweight, Compact Telephoto Lens from Nikon Perfect for Sports and Wildlife
The Nikon AF-S 300mm f/4E PF ED VR Nikkor lens is perfect for hand-held shooting.
I’ve always considered Nikon’s 300mm f/4 lenses to be underrated for sports and wildlife photography. They are sharp, focus fairly close, and can handle a teleconverter. Because these lenses are fairly compact, they just scream to be hand-held. The only thing missing was image stabilization (VR). Nikon released a completely redesigned 300mm f/4 lens that includes the latest VR stabilization, and I was able to get a demo lens from B&H Photo for evaluation.
