Nikon AF-S DX Micro Nikkor 85mm f/3.5G ED VR Lens Review

Nikon AF-S DX Micro Nikkor 85mm f/3.5G ED VR Performance

Although not mind-blowing, this lens puts in a decent performance as far as sharpness is concerned. At maximum aperture sharpness is good in the centre of the frame, and approaching good towards the edges.

As the lens is stopped down, the clarity improves until f/8, where sharpness in the centre of the frame is excellent, and very good towards the edges.

Resolution at 85mm

How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Nikon D300 using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations are kept within reasonable levels. At their worst they just exceed one pixel width towards the edges of the frame at f/16. This level may start to become visible, but only in very large prints or harsh crops from the edges of the frame.

Chromatic aberation at 85mm

How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Nikon D300 using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is well controlled, with the corners of the image area being only 1.13 stops darker than the image centre at f/3.5. Visually uniform illumination is achieved when the lens is stopped down to f/5.6 or beyond.

As might be expected for a fixed focal length lens, distortion levels are minimal. Imatest managed to detect 0.319% barrel distortion, which will pose few issues for most photography. If straight lines are absolutely critical, then you'll be glad to know that the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, which should make any corrections straightforward.

A deep circular hood is supplied with this lens, which does an excellent job of shielding the front element from any extraneous light that may cause a loss of contrast of flare in images. Occasionally, when shooting into the light contrast levels can drop off substantially, but only when the light source is very strong.

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