Recommendations for a Budger Priced Nikon Mount Portrait Lens

It seems to me that her hair is sharp but not her eyelashes.

We all have likes & you may just have do do a bit of (expensive) trial & error.

The stock recommendation here is a 105mm f/2.5. Some people prefer the Gauss design and some prefer the newer Sonnar-style design. Despite being a portrait lens addict I've never owned either one, so I'll defer to others on that.

I did slightly prefer the 85mm f/1.8 H-C or "K" models to the 85mm f/2 AI or AI-s, but again you'll find others that disagree. The 75-150mm f/3.5E is a good choice as well, but you'll need to add a pair of "rabbit ears" to use it on your FTn. John White can add the yoke for $35 plus shipping. The "gotcha" with the 75-150mm is that all of them develop a loose zoom action with use. Zoom "creep" doesn't begin to describe it.

My favorite "oddball" manual focus portrait lens is a Tokina 60-120mm f/2.8. It's fairly rare in Nikon mount, but there's one for sale on eBay from Mexico as I type this. Unlike the 75-150mm it's ready to use on your FTn.

I'll throw in on the 100 vs 105… yes, the 105 is pretty special. But I've used a 100 series E for decades and it's pretty great for the money (usually under a hundred bucks, but the DSLR video thing is eking that up a bit… really a great lens on APS-C and a beautiful video look).

Another widely available lens is the 85mm 1.8 AF - you'd have to look into it functioning on your body, but it's long been a favorite of mine, especially for color. It's got some mojo going.

Zeiss Biometar 80/2.8 for Pentacon Six with P6->F adapter. Both for less than $200 ($150 if you're lucky) together. Or stretch another $50-100 and you can get a 120/2.8 instead.

I second the vote for the Rokinon 85mm f/1.4. Great lens if a little big/heavy. Slow to focus which would suit your needs well, very modern looking and at 85mm & 1.4 who needs a background?

Macro could be another good option, I really like my Series 1 Vivitar 105/2.5 and just picked up a Vivitar 90/2.8 to see if I like it any better, which I doubt is possible.

The 100mm f/2.8E, 85mm f/1.8 AF, and 85mm f/1.8 AF-D all share the same issue with the 75-150mm f/3.5E; the original poster would need to add "rabbit ears" to allow the lens to work with their FTn.

Excellent ideas. Thanks everyone. I was thinking that it may be possible to buy another FD 135 2.5 lens w/ an adapter, break out the adapter lens that allows infinity focus, and use it on the FTn for portraits only, since I won't be needing anything beyond 10' or so. Those are great lenses for this job, and it should come to under $100 for it all.

momus said:

On the other hand, the Canon FD 135 2.5 is cheap and a killer, so I may have to go back to a Canon camera if something doesn't show up for the Nikon.

Click to expand...

+1, i own that lens, it is fantastic.

For Nikon i have the 135/3.5 AI which is sharp and with nice out of focus, but the tele I use the most is the 200/4.0 AI which is just fantastic.

If really smooth "bokeh" you're after, try the Nikkor-Q-C 200mm f4.0, a pre-AI lens. Get the one with the "C" (multicoated), because it has a revised optical design over the 1st one. Very smooooth out of focus areas.

momus said:

Excellent ideas. Thanks everyone. I was thinking that it may be possible to buy another FD 135 2.5 lens w/ an adapter, break out the adapter lens that allows infinity focus, and use it on the FTn for portraits only, since I won't be needing anything beyond 10' or so. Those are great lenses for this job, and it should come to under $100 for it all.

Click to expand...

For about $100 you should be able to get a good Canon FD camera like the FT or FTb, which i'd prefer over the Nikkormat FTn (i've owned a Nikkormat FT2).

benveniste said:

The 100mm f/2.8E, 85mm f/1.8 AF, and 85mm f/1.8 AF-D all share the same issue with the 75-150mm f/3.5E; the original poster would need to add "rabbit ears" to allow the lens to work with their FTn.

Click to expand...

Cannot you can use the lenses without rabbits ears in stopped down mode with a FTn? That may be more convenient then getting ears, screws drilling and tapping, I got the kits but have not bothered with fitting it to my E or late AIs lenses without ears... the F2s I use are not sufficiently inconvenient stop down.

The 200mm f/4 Nikkor Q which came right before the QC has the same optical formula, just different coating. The original 20cm f/4 from 1961 has the same number of elements and groups but does not focus as close. The Canon 135/2.5 FD SC can be compared to the 135/2.8 Q/QC/'K' Nikkors. They are about the same size and focus down to five feet. For my purposes that's not quite close enough for a tightly cropped portrait. You would have to enlarge the image more and your image quality would suffer. The Canon and the Nikkors also both have nice out of focus rendition so this can improve the look of the background. It is easier to use an F mount Nikkor lens on a Canon FL/FD camera because there are available adapters, infinity focus is not a problem and no glass element is needed in the adapter. You do, of course, lose auto diaphragm operation. Adapting the Canon lens to fit a Nikon camera is more difficult and you still lose auto diaphragm operation. If you don't think you will need infinity focus anyway then you might consider just using either lens with a small automatic extension tube between the lens and the camera. The later and more compact 135/2.8 Nikkors [2nd 'K' version, AI, AIS] have slightly closer focusing than the earlier 135/2.8s. You also have to consider that most 135 lenses are not as sharp at their closest focusing distances as they are at greater distances or at infinity. While it can be fun to adapt equipment for certain purposes, a more complicated set-up is not necessarily a better one.

Good advice from Dynachrome.

As for sharpness, i can only speak about my Canon New FD 135/2.8; it was sharp at all distances, even close ups. My Canon FD 135/2.5 has an even better reputation, but i can't confirm it yet.

My Nikkor-Q 200/4.0 pre-AI suffered from slight chromatic abberation and wasn't so sharp, but that's because i had the 1961 version. Still, it was sharp enough and the "bokeh" was smooth as fresh butter. I got some very nice portraits from it, and regret selling it. My Nikkor 200/4.0 AI is very sharp, "bokeh" is smooth but I feel the older version was even smoother, or with more "character".

As Dynachrome said, some years just before the release of the Nikkor-QC version, the optical formula was changed (but it still was 4 elements).

I use, like others have mentioned the ai-s 85 f2 lens. great and in a small package. I have started to play around with my dads old 80-200 f2.8d push pull lens. And I gotta say it is great. the added benefit of being able to get some zoom motion without a large sacrifice in image quality helps when using a tripod and lights and not having to physically move the camera.