Is Nikon's 85mm f/1.2 Worth the Extra $2,000 Over the f/1.8?

Only three companies make an 85mm f/1.2 lens for mirrorless right now, and the price gap between one of them and its slower sibling runs about $2,000. That number alone forces a question every portrait shooter eventually faces: how much aperture is worth paying for?

That question sits at the center of a studio project from Leigh & Raymond Photography, where Leigh puts the Nikon 85mm f/1.2 S through a monochrome portrait shoot on the Nikon Z 9. Optical quality was never in doubt here. It's an S lens, sharp edge to edge even wide open, with a transition from focus to blur that looks lovely in the studio frames. Leigh set the camera to eye-detection autofocus and aperture priority at f/1.2, then had Raymond move in close for tightly cropped headshots before backing off for wider poses. The bokeh in the shots where hair falls outside the depth of field is genuinely beautiful.

The more useful part of the video is a plain-spoken test of what f/1.2 actually buys. Leigh braced against a shelf so nothing would move, set the camera on a tripod, and shot the same face at f/1.2, f/1.4, and f/1.8. At that distance the jump from f/1.2 to f/1.4 was almost invisible. At f/1.8 the lips came into focus and the nose sharpened up, but even then the difference was small. Leigh is honest that variables like subject distance, sharpness, and bokeh character all shift the picture, so this is an informal look rather than a lab result. The shallow depth of field also cuts both ways: looking straight at the camera kept both eyes sharp while the nose and mouth softened, and a slight head turn was enough to push one eye out of focus.

Leigh lays out the alternatives without pretending they don't exist. Nikon's own 85mm f/1.8 S costs far less and travels lighter. Independent makers fill the gap too, and Leigh reaches for a Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 Pro for a lot of the channel's filming, plus a budget Meike 85mm f/1.8 that punches above its price. The size surprise is worth hearing: Leigh expected the 85mm to dwarf the Nikon 50mm f/1.2 S, but on Nikon's own spec sheet the two land close in weight and length. Both are a commitment to carry, especially bolted to a Z 9.

The f/1.2 club stays small for a reason. Canon builds one for its mirrorless mount, Sigma announced an 85mm f/1.2 Art in development for E and L mounts earlier this year, and after that the field thins out fast. Manual-focus M-mount glass gets close in spec, but wide open most of it won't match the crispness of a modern autofocus S lens. Leigh's TTArtisan 90mm f/1.25 adapts nicely and is enjoyable to shoot, yet it goes soft at its widest setting, which is a different look rather than a competitor. Leica's Noctilux 75mm f/1.25 is sharp and priced accordingly. If you're choosing an 85mm for portraits, the practical takeaway is that focal length does a lot of the depth-of-field work you might be crediting to aperture. Longer glass such as the Viltrox 135mm f/1.8 LAB or the Nikon 135mm f/1.8 S Plena can hand you a very shallow plane without pushing to an extreme aperture, and stepping back with a longer lens changes compression and background rendering in ways an f-stop alone never will. That's a lever many shooters overlook when they reach for the widest number on the box.

Leigh's verdict on whether the lens earns a spot in the bag is the piece you'll want to watch play out in the video above.