The Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AIS is a top of the line short telephoto lens for Nikon 35mm film SLR and higher end digital SLR cameras. It's a legendary professional lens that takes incredible images.
With a relatively narrow field of view the 85mm is in the portrait focal length range well suited for framing head and shoulders photography at a distance that yields flattering perspective. The 85mm f/1.4 AIS uses a tremendous amount of high quality glass to provide an incredibly large f/1.4 maximum aperture making it both bright and able to produce very shallow depth of field putting backgrounds and foregrounds largely out of focus. This beautiful selective focus at maximum aperture makes this lens ideal for people pictures. It's a very sharp contrasty lens but the ultra shallow depth of field can produce something more, an additional impression of sharp focus simply from the dramatic difference between in and out of focus areas, which works even when using soft focus filters.
The ocean of aperture also makes the 85mm f/1.4 adept at available light shooting where the extra viewfinder brightness and access to faster shutters speeds can make all the difference between got it and missed it.
The Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AIS was the first telephoto lens to employ Nikon's Close-Range Correction (CRC ) floating lens element system, ensuring high resolution down to a close focusing distance of 36 inches. The 85mm f/1.4 Nikkor AIS was the fastest telephoto in the Nikkor line at the time of it's introduction in 1981 (excluding the rare Repro-Nikkor 85mm f/1.0) and it remains as bright as it's younger siblings the 85mm f/1.4D AF and 85mm f/1.4G AF-S. Other solid 85mm f/1.4 offerings exist but none have quite the same authentic feel as the original.
Key Features
Available accessories include HN-20 Lens Hood, and 72mm filters.
