Anyone Else Have Difficulty Settling on a Portrait Lens for 35mm?

[E. von Hoegh]

There is an unfortunate problem w the 85 being too soft at f2. You'll probably get the eyes and mouth nicely in focus, but not the nose and chin! I had some strange looking shots w/ that lens at f2, and by 2.8 they looked fine.

In some comparison portraits between this and a Leica R 90 Elmarit (both at 2.8), it was tough to pick one from the other, notwithstanding that the Leica's 90mm lens had my sitter larger in the shot (more than I had guessed it would). OK, the Elmarit had more contrast too, but the Nikon shots looked fine. In fact, I liked them more than the Leica shots. Contrast isn't an issue, as it's easy to bump that up after the neg, or even before in developing.

You could probably utilize the softness. I need to shoot it some more for sure. It could be used for more than portraits, or even for portraits where you wanted a certain look. The bokeh is really nice.

Dude, that's not softness, it's shallow depth of focus.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Depth of field, E., depth of field.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Depth of field, E., depth of field.

D.o. focus, behind the lens, d.o. field, the subject. Either term explains it as being distinct from a soft lens.

 

[Black Dog]

Go for bokeh..