This dates me horribly, but I have had a short telephoto prime lens as a key part of my lens collection for more than 40 years — something in the range 85-105mm on a full-frame camera. They are generally thought of as portrait lenses, ideal for maintaining a comfortable distance between the photographer and the subject while giving a natural look to the images. For me, they are very general-purpose lenses: while I love them for portraits, they have gone with me pretty much anywhere. Because I like to keep one in my bag, smaller and lighter always appealed: you’ll note that none of the three lenses shown above are the fastest lenses in the manufacturer’s range.
I've mentioned in an earlier post that one of the first lenses I bought for my Olympus OM2n when I first got into photography was the OM Zuiko 100mm f/2.8 lens. I used this for the better part of a quarter of a century. Over the time I was shooting film, I tried a couple of zoom lenses, but I found them awful compared to my primes.
India, 1982. OM2n, 100mm Zuiko lens, Kodachrome 64. This was a lovely man who looked after the rest house I stayed at for a couple of days while walking with friends in the Himalayan foothills.
When digital came along, I bought a Nikon DSLR (with the kit zoom that surprised me with how good it was). Since it could not use my Olympus lenses, I purchased a used Nikon 105mm AF-D DC f/2 lens a couple of years later. I chose that lens because of its focal length, similar to the Olympus, and the defocus control was a huge attraction too. I loved the look that the lens gave, but on my D700 the autofocus was, to put it mildly and politely, extremely unreliable.
Irish Air Corps AW139 and crew. Nikon D700, 105m f/2 DC lens at f/2, 1/25, tripod. Gosh -- paper maps! Remember them?
Subsequently, my first venture into mirrorless was with my Panasonic Lumix GX9. The second lens I bought for it was the 42.5mm f/1.7, which, given the small size of the micro-4/3 sensor, is equivalent to an 85mm lens on a full-frame. The Panasonic 42.5mm lens is a favourite lens on the micro-4/3 system: it is a little gem. That lens got me used to the 85mm perspective, so when I eventually bought my Sony A1, an 85mm f/1.8 lens was the second lens I bought for it. Creature of habit or what?
Reflections, Piccadilly Circus, Lumix GX9, 42.5mm f/1.7 lens at f/1.7.
Before moving to Sony, I sold the Nikon 105mm lens. But I still have and occasionally use the Olympus 100mm on my Sony. The 85mm Sony lens is one of my most used.
Why am I telling you all this? Two things. First, self-evidently, I've had a very long-term relationship with these short telephoto primes. On the scale of gear acquisition syndrome (GAS), I consider myself relatively frugal, having had just four of these lenses over 40 years, and they have been essential to my practice.
Evie, Sussex, 2024. Sony A1, 85mm f/1.8 at f/1.8.
The second thing, though, is that Sony recently released something that has grabbed my attention. They announced a couple of weeks ago the 85mm f/1.4 GM II lens: smaller and lighter than the original, and optically much better. It has everything I'd like in one of my foundational lenses: very sharp with a beautiful rendering, but with faster and more reliable autofocus than the original. Lenstip's MTF curves demonstrate just how much sharper across the frame it is than either my f/1.8 lens or the f/1.4 GM1. On my A1, it will do the full 30 frames per second, which the original would not, although that would be a rare use. Dani Diamond made some sample files available to download (thank you Dani!) and, yes, they are as good as expected. It's a lens where reviewers can find essentially nothing wrong with it, except the price. Currently, it's just short of £1800, which is a lot for one of those basic lenses that form part of an everyday repertoire (I think in cash terms about 40x more than I paid for my original Olympus lens).
When I was thinking about buying my A1, I tried out the 85mm f/1.4 GM (version 1). It is very good. But somehow, it just didn't gel with me, at least not enough to justify the price difference over the f/1.8 version. I had another go recently with a borrowed one, and it was very nice and gave beautiful images. Still, somehow, again, it was easy to resist: it is bigger, heavier, slower to focus but (fractionally softer bokeh under some circumstances apart) indistinguishable from the f/1.8 lens in actual pictures.
All this prompted me to look through my Lightroom archive and see how I'd used my various 85/100/105mm lenses over the years. I got curious to see what use I'd actually made of those lenses. Lightroom makes this so easy. Looking through the archive was fun. There were a mixture of very familiar pictures and some I'd totally forgotten about. Writing this blog piece is a good opportunity to give a few an airing.
Long story short: I’ve used the short tele-primes for everything from portraits to landscape/cityscape and street photography, and even aviation photography by day and by night. Many of the product shots (pictures of cameras and lenses) on this blog have been taken with the Lumix 42.5mm lens.
The progression of the technology is obvious too: manual focus to screw-drive AF to highly effective internal motors. The AF on the Nikon 105mm using my D700 was not at all reliable by today’s standards: I have loads of out-of-focus shots in my Lightroom catalogue (yes, I should delete them, but if I did, I wouldn’t know how unreliable the AF was…). By contrast, with the A1 and the Sony 85mm f/1.8, the AF is rock solid, even with someone running towards me.
I thought I’d post a few examples here of the kind of pictures I’ve made with these lenses over the years. It made me realize — yet again — just how much I value these lenses.
The unresolved question remaining is where the price of the new lens sits compared to that value. Price/opportunity cost vs value. I'll go and take some pictures while I cogitate that problem.
More pictures (of varying ancient-ness) below.
Old lens, new camera. Sony A1 with Olympus OM Zuiko 100mm f/2.8
Looking roughly north-east from the Empire State Building, April 1985. OM2n, OM Zuiko 100mm f/2.8, Kodachrome 64.
Baltimore, Jan 1984, OM2n, OM Zuiko 100mm f/2.8, FP4.
Sweet peas growing wild. Nikon D300, 105m f/2 DC lens at f/11. Even stopped down, that lens could give lovely looking out of focus highlights.
The best man holds forth. Nikon D810, 105m f/2 DC lens at f/2.8.
French Air Force Pilatus PC-21 running after dark. Sony A1, 85mm f/1.8 at f/2.8, 1/25 sec, ISO 1000. In contrast to the helicopter picture above this was taken hand-held. Tripod not always needed in the age of image stabilisation.
Tas, 2021. Sony A1, 85mm f/1.4 GM at f/1.6. This was with the GM version 1 lens.
Evie, London, 2024. Sony A1, 85mm f/1.8 at f/1.8. Channeling my inner Peter Lindbergh :)