Nikon AF 85mm f/1.8D Lens

This lens is a relatively low priced, prime lens with a solid build quality to it which is typical of the Nikon brand.

I've used it to take photographs with both of my Nikon F5 35mm film SLR & D300 D-SLR cameras. It's able to capture very fine details & quality. It's construction is made up of 6 elements in 6 groups and it has 9 blades making up it's aperture. Thankfully, it still uses a manually adjustable aperture ring if you need to do use it like that or set it to auto & the camera will set it for you. Sadly the aperture ring is disappearing from modern lens design as manufactures such as Canon did this with their latest lenses sometime ago & Nikon is copying them!

This lens does not have any internal motors to focus, rather it uses the slotted drive screw which is operated by the camera body to autofocus this lens so if it's used on a Nikon D40 or the like, then manual focusing is only available. This lens is IF, which stands for internal focusing. It's length remains constant - does not extend!

A 62mm diameter lens filter can be screwed onto the front of the lens & thankfully the barrel doesn't rotate when auto or manually focusing which allows filters such as a polarising filter to be used & set as it will not be 'thrown out' when the lens focuses.

It's great when I use my Nikon SB-800 flashgun for portraits or in natural light when the sun is out. Bokeh is fantastic due to it's large aperture of f/1.8 which throws the background out of focus thus blurring it but it keeps the subject sharply in focus.

Of course there's also the Nikon 85mm f/1.4 lens available if you have about £1400 that needs spending so the f/1.8 lens £300 which is today's price seems an excellent price to pay for it.

Finally, this lens is the cheapest lens on the list of Nikon cameras & lenses that qualifies it's owners to join Nikon's Professional Users group in the UK which has extra benefits to their users. Nice one Nikon!