My Wedding Photography Lenses Part 3: the 85mm

Nothing really can beat a fast 85mm lens for wedding photography

I used the Nikon 85mm f1.4G lens and the amazing Nikon 35mm f1.4g lens on my DLSR's for many, many weddings. The combination of these two lenses are like a Mohammad Ali one/two punch for wedding and portrait photography. After shooting a pile of weddings I also kept an ultra wide lens in the bag for any emergency wide angle needs. But these two lenses worked for me at many a wedding.

To get these examples of using the 85mm lens at weddings I looked through about 5,000 pictures on Lightroom for my Wedding Wire advertising page. These are the 2 Star photos from that edit. I wrote more about it on the 20mm lens post.

The 85mm shows just enough reach to almost be a telephoto and yet still wide enough to show some environment around the picture. The most amazing part of these fast 85's shows up when shooting at f1.4 with the beautifully blurry backgrounds. On quality lenses this looks like someone airbrushed the background. This not only makes the subject pop off the page, but gives the picture an ethereal feel.

That said, all the Nikon f1.4G lenses had the same weakness with slow-as-molasses autofocus. How many pictures did I miss because the focus didn't lock in quickly enough? This slow autofocus caused me to switch over to Canon with the mirrorless cameras. Plus the 85mm lens was quite heavy and bulky. I took it out hiking and on many a road-trip but didn't bring it on international family trips. For family trips I've learned to keep it as simple and as light as possible. Our next trip to Spain I'll bring the Fuji and a couple lightweight lenses. But the big 35mm format f1.4 lenses get too heavy and bulky for traveling with the family.

That said, if I ever did a world trip with just one camera and one suitcase, the 85mm lens (a 56mm on the Fuji) would be included.

So here's my 2 Star edit of wedding and engagement portraits shot with the Nikon 85mm f1.4G lens.