Cheap ($99) portrait 85mm f/1.8 lens: my review

[Peeb]

Purchased an opteka portrait (85mm) prime lens on amazon for 99.00. Was curious as to what a hundred dollar bill would get you these days. It's a real 'throwback' experience.

Just like my first 35mm camera 40 years ago, this lens can only shoot in manual or aperture priority mode. Aperture ring right on the lens. No auto exposure. No auto focus. Old school. Unfortunately, my eyes are getting pretty 'old school' too, so I'm not catching focus very reliably. When I do catch focus correctly wide open, then DOF for f/1.8 is paper thin. I've included several examples of images taken today. What do you think?

I find the glass to be pretty soft overall, but I've tried to 'help' the images in post.

My take:

PROS: For the price of a nice filter, I have a new lens that lets me 'test drive' the 85mm prime focal length. I enjoy the nostalgia of actually focusing my lenses! The lens is very light and you don't worry about your large monetary investment when walking about! The bokeh is fun for the most part, but see below.

CONS: The glass is OK at best, to my eyes (what do you expect for 99.00 right?). I am missing a lot of shots due to slow/poor focusing skills. Again, the in-focus images are quite soft to me, and the contrast, especially for distant objects is lacking (no examples of distant focused objects yet- I'll update later). Construction quality is exactly what you would expect of a super-cheap imported lens. Bokeh is generally pleasing, but see the green background behind the plant image below. Looks odd to me.

TAKEAWAY; the nikon 50mm 1.8D can be had for $32.00 more and it absolutely trounces this lens. Still, I have no regrets about splurging for this as I was genuinely curious and I've had fun messing with it. I figure I can flip it on eBay for a couple of bucks and call the net my 'rental' cost. It's convinced me that I need a genuine nikon AF 85mm 1.8 at some point in my (hopefully) near future!

 

[tirediron]

Nice review; seems like $99 worth.

 

[Peeb]

Here's my critique of myself:

1. Focus on 1 (football player) just missed. Background is intentionally blown out, but it's not blown out enough to avoid being a slight distraction. This was an unplanned shot which discloses one of the weaknesses of this lens in my hands- you have to have your skills honed to quickly and confidently focus this lens. I missed here.

2. Just a very odd background. Almost looks like the donut bokeh of a mirror lens. Not sure what was going on here but included it to show what can happen.

3. Focus and bokeh seem fine here to me. Outdoors with plenty of light. Fixed subject so plenty of time to focus!

4. Focus and/or image seem just a TAD soft, but the colors and contrast are pleasing to me.

YMMV.

 

[Peeb]

Nice review; seems like $99 worth.

Thanks so much!

 

[fmw]

Back in the day there were companies that made "portrait" lenses that were slightly soft on purpose. The idea was to help hide skin imperfections. Perhaps what goes around really does come around.

 

[Peeb]

Back in the day there were companies that made "portrait" lenses that were slightly soft on purpose. The idea was to help hide skin imperfections. Perhaps what goes around really does come around.

Ha! There ya go.