Sunday 18 October 2015

Nikon 85mm f/1.8G on Nikon 1

By using the Nikon FT-1 mount adapter, you can connect Nikkor F mount lenses to a Nikon 1 camera. Most newer lenses work well on Nikon 1 cameras, in the sense that you can operate the aperture as usual, and you can also use the autofocus. When using an adapted lens, you can only use the centre focus point, and you cannot use the AF-A mode. Otherwise, it is mostly like using a native Nikon 1 lens.

It still doesn't make sense to use any Nikon F lens on a Nikon 1 camera. I would only bother if the Nikon F lens is one of:

  1. Fast (large aperture)
  2. Very long (tele, large magnification)
  3. Macro (close focus distance)

A lens in the first category is the entry level fast portrait lens, the Nikon 85mm f/1.8G. To understand why an 85mm lens is called a portrait lens, you can read this article.

On a Nikon 1 camera, this lens becomes equivalent to 230mm f/1.8, due to the 2.7x crop factor. Such a lens can be interesting for various purposes, for example low light photography in concerts or theatres. Here you see the Nikon 85mm f/1.8G mounted to the Nikon FT-1 (to the left), compared with the native CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 to the right, mounted to the Nikon 1 V3.