How Nikon's Flagship 85mm f/1.2 Holds Up Against New Rivals

Nikon's NIKKOR Z 85mm f/1.2 S sells for close to $3,000 and weighs more than many of the bodies you'd mount it on. For about three years, it has been the obvious pick on Z mount if you want the thinnest depth of field and the cleanest portrait rendering, and now cheaper third-party 85mm f/1.2 lenses are showing up to test how long that lasts.

Dustin Abbott puts the Nikon NIKKOR Z 85mm f/1.2 S up against the SongRaw 85mm f/1.2 AF MS, a lens that costs about $650. The Nikkor is the bigger of the two at 1,160 g and 141.5 mm long, with a 102.5 mm diameter that makes it unusually thick even by f/1.2 standards. Abbott counts roughly nine seal points through the barrel, plus a fluorine coating on the front element, an AF/MF switch near the mount, a single custom button, and a clickless control ring. That ring lags during aperture racks, so the iris keeps moving about a stop after you stop turning, and you have to learn to time it. The plastic hood also skips a rubberized front edge, which you'll notice on a lens this heavy that often gets set down face first.

For autofocus, Nikon skipped its newer voice coil motor and used dual stepping motors, which Abbott suspects is because few people shoot sports with an 85mm f/1.2. In Abbott's portrait work, even wide open at f/1.2 and shooting into the sun, focus landed every time. His formal tests turned up the occasional rack in the wrong direction, and he felt motor drag when turning the focus ring quickly. He places it a bit ahead of the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM and more refined than the SongRaw. It trails the Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art, though that lens isn't made for Z mount.

Nikon has let third-party autofocus lenses onto Z mount far more openly than Canon has with RF. Viltrox, Tamron, Sigma, and a growing list of smaller Chinese brands now sell autofocus glass for Z bodies. Canon didn't approve third-party autofocus lenses for RF until 2024, and those first approvals went to Sigma and Tamron APS-C designs. When outside makers can match a flagship's sharpness at a fraction of the price, the flagship's value shifts to everything around the glass: sealing, motor tuning, firmware support, and repair service. When you shop any first-party prime now, work out which of those extras you actually use. If you shoot weddings in the rain or can't afford a lens going down mid-job, they carry real weight. If you shoot portraits on weekends in good weather, the optics might be all you're paying for. Abbott also points out a third route for some buyers: slower 85mm lenses that are much smaller, lighter, and cheaper.

Video brings out more of the stepping motors' limits. Focus pulls don't sweep smoothly, and there's a slight stepping action that Abbott didn't expect from a lens at this price. In his hand test, focus sometimes paused partway up his arm before reaching his hand, even after it became the obvious subject in the frame. Nikon advertises low focus breathing, and that holds for small adjustments, but larger pulls show obvious breathing. Tracking a person walking toward the camera at f/1.2 worked fine, and Abbott would still use the lens for video because the footage looks so good. Up close, it focuses to 85 cm, and its 0.11x maximum magnification is low for an 85mm, though detail and plane of focus at that distance are excellent. Inside are 15 elements in 10 groups and 11 aperture blades that keep highlights round even stopped down. In resolution tests on a 45-megapixel Nikon Z8, the SongRaw was sharper and higher in contrast than the Nikkor at f/1.2 in the center and mid-frame, while the Nikkor stayed more consistent out to the corners.

Abbott's verdict on who should pay the Nikkor's premium is in the video above.