Nikon Announces New 85mm Portrait & 28mm Street Photo Lenses
News | By Stephan Jukic | January 6, 2023
Two new lens types in the Z-Mount range are on the way from Nikon. These are a Nikkor 85mm f/1.2 S and Nikkor Z 26mm f/2.8.
Both of the new optics are designed for the Nikon brand’s full-frame Z series mirrorless cameras but, as their specs immediately make clear, each serves a completely different function from the other.
Starting with the larger model, the 85mm f/1.2 S: it’s part of Nikon’s S Line of lenses that the company claims to represent “superior rendering performance and large, beautiful bokeh”. The lens then couples these qualities with a focal length and a wide aperture that are designed for classic portrait shooting.
In other words, it’s going to make for a great event, fashion and wedding photographer’s lens as well as a decent portrait shooter in general. It could also work well for certain types of human-interest street photography.
Nikon further describes the 85mm as a fast mid-telephoto Prime lens that will be a “must-have” for Nikon-using photographers who work in the above-mentioned areas of photography.
In fact, the company specifically emphasizes that “everything you capture with this lens will look elegant and glamorous.” So, there’s definitely that to look forward to.
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As for the Nikkor Z 26mm f/2.8 compact lens, It’s designed to be just about as unobtrusive as possible for all kinds of general shooting and street photography needs.
Nikon describes it as a “powerful” lens model despite its extremely compact, light dimensions and according to the company, it will be particularly excellent for everyday street photography shooting.
It’s certainly thin, and as this particular lover of discreet street photography can attest, that’s a great quality in a lens sticking out of a compact mirrorless camera during the casual shooting of people and places in motion.
Nikon hasn’t provided any other information about these two optics, but we’re expecting them to excite more than a few users of Nikon Z-Series cameras.
Each definitely looks like it has something very useful to offer for the type of user that would prefer one or the other, and for street photographers, the very slim 26mm f/2.8 looks especially promising.
In other rumors, Nikon is also supposedly working on several other lenses for near-future release. These include a new 70-180mm model, a new 200-600mm telephoto and a 12-28mm power-zoom model.
We’ll report more as we discover it but you probably shouldn’t expect any of these latter, rumored lens types to emerge until well into this year.
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Stephan Jukic is a technology and photography journalist and experimental photographer who spends his time living in both Canada and Mexico. He loves cross-cultural street photo exploration and creating fine art photo compositions.
