Nikon AF 85mm f/1.8 Reviews

This is quite simply one of my favourite lenses. If it ever breaks, I'll replace it with xactly the same again without thinking twice about it.

f/1.8 is very, very usable and at this wide aperture, out-of-focus highlights are blurred to a silky-smooth finish. The best range for sharpness is between f/2.8 and f/5.6, but as you stop down, you start to lose the smoothness of the background.

AF is quick, and the rear-focusing mechanism means the lens doesn't change length, which I love.

The only resrvation I have is with the sealing, or lack of it. My lens is a good few years old (it was bought second hand) and it has a few large chunks of dust inside just behind the front element, which causes flare and ghosting.

Very honest lens. The chunks of dust gentleman above refers to can be avoided, I suppose, if you use lens in manual focus mode only.

It's the The powerful manual focus suction of the motor that causes dust to be drawn onto lens elements, as I was told by Nikon service rep after I had my almost new Nikkor 85mm f1.8 Af D lens serviced for internal dust issues.