Vivitar 85mm f/1.4 Series 1 Manual Focus Lens

Comments about Vivitar 85mm f/1.4 Series 1 Manual Focus Lens:

If you're in the market for a Nikon F-mount 85mm lens, you have many choices, over a truly wild price range:* $1700 gets you Nikon's flagship 85mm f/1.4G ([...]);* $1000 gets you Nikon's older 85mm f/1.4D, Sigma's new 85mm f/1.4 HSM, or Zeiss's 85mm f/1.4 planar;* 450 gets you Nikon's old (but well regarded) 85mm f/1.8D* [$] gets you this (or its Rokinon, Bowar, Polar, ProOptic branded cousins--they're all made by Samyang optics).And let's not forget that in many ways, much of what gets done by an 85mm prime can be just as well accomplished by a pro f/2.8 telezoom--say Nikon's own $2400 70-200 VRII, or its $1000 80-200 f/2.8D.Choices, choices. How to narrow it down--and why have I put the Vivitar on top?If you can buy only one lens and you're comparing 85mm f/1.4 or f/1.8 primes with pro f/2.8 telezooms, there's no contest: the pro telezooms are far more versatile tools. And both of Nikon's offerings are mechanically excellent and optically superb all the way to f/2.8--there's no real optical advantage to shooting one of these primes at comparable apertures. (The primes are lighter and a bit more economical with your bag space, though with hoods deployed, perhaps less than one might suspect.)That said, there's sometimes no substitute for the incredible subject isolation and bokeh 85mm can deliver at wide apertures. This special effect is something the telezooms can't quite deliver. Nor, by the way, can the Nikon 85 f/1.8D--at least not in the same league as the f/1.4 offerings.In narrowing down the 85mm f/1.4 choices, if you were presented with a group of portrait shots from these competing lenses, all shot at f/1.4, would you be able to tell which lens shot which portrait?I approached this question with a scouring of Flickr, and I came to a profound conclusion: *no*!In fact, the more images I reviewed from this group of lenses, the more I noted that simply hitting or missing the focus at the razor-thin 85mm f/1.4 depth of field made the most discernible difference in image quality. And I noted something else: the autofocus lenses--the Nikkor 85G, 85D, and Sigma--tended not to have more sample images in focus than the Zeiss or the Vivitar (Samyang). Quite to the contrary: the Zeiss and Vivitar groups had a far better "hit" rate.Really, I'd known this before--that tack-sharp portraiture with an 85mm f/1.4 shot wide-open is a manual focus activity best performed with your camera's Live View zoomed into your target so that you can actually see your focus. AF--even the $1700 Nikon 85mm f/1.4G's AF--just isn't good enough on most bodies.If you're still with me, then you can already see why the Vivitar is a complete no-brainer purchase: it has optical quality you can't distinguish from the competition costing $1400 (!!!) more, and it isn't any less convenient to use for its intended purpose. Honestly, the Bokeh might be the smoothest of the bunch. Maybe the 85G (or others) start to pull away from the Vivitar at narrower apertures? Who knows: I didn't buy an 85mm f/1.4 to shoot at f/8.How about build quality? Honestly, the lens itself appears constructed with the same internal focus design and engineering plastic-over-metal substructure that Nikon uses with the 85G. Plastics are the same solid, dappled-texture as the 85G's. Weight and "feel" is the same. The focus ring throw is *superb*--well dampened, smooth, even. The aperture ring clicks with authority--also smooth and even. It's an absolute pleasure to use. My only gripe: the front and rear caps, which are cheesy and side-pinched (as if from the Canon FD school of thought), so the $1400 Nikon premium gets you more, there. Just get a pair of Nikon caps to go with it.In any case, if you go shooting portraits with this among friends that splurged for any of the other 85s on this list, they will hate you quickly. You'll have images that are at least as sharp and smooth, but you'll also have more than $1000 in your pocket.

Comments about Vivitar 85mm f/1.4 Series 1 Manual Focus Lens:

I use this lens with the Letus Extreme adapter.