The Best Lens Nikon Made in the Past 10 Years

As a journalist who’s been reviewing Nikon cameras and gear for nearly 20 years (even before starting the Phoblographer) I’ve found myself thinking back fondly on a few pieces of gear that really stood out. One of those is a lens that Nikon made back in 2016 and that never failed to deliver a bad picture. Crazy enough, it’s a lens that was so beautiful that I didn’t even care about a lack of character in it. Everything about that lens just looked mesmerizing in a way that my images felt like they were looking back at me with a twinkle in their eyes.

I’m obviously talking about the Nikon 105mm Ff1.4 E ED lens. We reviewed it 10 years ago I’ve spoken before about how Nikon should bring it back for Z mount. With that in mind, I’ve recently been in an organizational mode, and so I’ve been working on consolidating my archives of images into one place instead of just having them on several different hard drives. That has ultimately lead me to revisit the shoots I did with the Nikon 105mm f1.4 E ED lens. These images were also shot on the D810 and without any flash — a rarity for me back then. They’re being published here in this article that you’re currently reading and edited in Capture One with the Phoblographer’s presets. Specifically, I’ve been using our film presets lately and Capture One’s Portrait profile for Nikon cameras.

It’s easy for photographers to sit here and say, “Oh, it’s a lens with a fast aperture and a long telephoto focal length, big deal.” And in many ways, you’re right. But what’s special about this lens is that it renders a look similar to that of a medium format lens. Specifically, it’s around the look of an 85mm f1.1 or so in either GFX format or in the 645 format. That’s likely one of the reasons why the lens still goes for around $1,000 used. Plus, it has autofocus and the lens can be used with the very good Nikon D850 or adapted onto something like the Z8 or Zf.

Just think: the only native mirrorless lens to do something like this are options like the Sigma 135mm f1.4 and, well, I can’t think of any others right off the top of my head. Of course, I’ve always felt the Canon 50 f1.2 RF always gave a medium format look that felt a lot more organic than the options Sony’s lenses delivered. Plus, Leica’s APO lenses can do something similar with the pop that you get in the scene. But mirrorless cameras have been the standard for the better part of 10 years now — which is when the Nikon 105mm f1.4 E ED was launched. So why haven’t lenses like this found their way into the mirrorless camera world?

If you’ve been reading the Phoblographer for a long time now, you’ll realize that in the past few years, I’ve been going way against what all the influencers and even lots of other journalists have been saying at other publications. And the staff has joined me in saying that none of really need the newest and the greatest camera gear out there. Some of it was made a long time ago and is being waiting to be awakened again. Below are other sample images that I hadn’t released from the Nikon 105mm f1.4 E ED. You can click on them to view them in all their glory.