In anticipation of the new Nikkor 85mm 1.4G
Once I finally decided that I want to get the new Nikkor 85mm 1.4G, it’s not available anywhere here in The Netherlands. And no ETA either. Sigh. So I decided to try a few portraits with my 50mm 1.4G instead…
I’ve had this lens for a while but never used it much. Especially after getting the 24-70 2.8. I shot a couple of images of my youngest last Sunday. For the first shot, the idea was to get the eyes in focus and anything else blurred by shooting wide open (1.4) and down – while making sure that both eyes were in the plane of focus. That’s actually pretty hard when shooting hand held at this aperture. Out of 4 shots this is the only one with the eyes sharp, although still not as sharp as I would have liked. Having a 1.4 lens obviously doesn’t mean you have to shoot it wide open all the time, but it does allow one to shoot some more creative portraits up close. If you practice a lot that is, which is something I clearly need to do.
Here’s another one shot at f1.4 but not as close up as the previous one. It’s interesting to see how much of a difference taking a small step back makes. Without having changed the exposure, more of the face is in focus, but the hair, shoulders and background are still nicely blurred. Perhaps I can save myself some money and shoot the 50mm instead for a while…
This is the last one that I shot, also @ 1.4. The 50mm does allow for a nice background blur. BTW its price is about a fifth of that of the new 85mm – go figure…
