What Nikon lens for both macro and portrait?

All three lenses are available at a local store near me:

• 85mm 1.8 at about 400USD


• 85mm 1.4 at about 1000USD


• 105mm 2.8 at about 1015 USD

I plan on doing macro and portrait photography and have the ff thoughts so far:

• I can save a lot with the 85mm 1.8 and a site claims that AF-wise it is much faster than the 85mm 1.4 at twice the price


• 105mm has VR but I don't know if that would be of much use with portrait and macro as I usually don't use slow shutter speeds with such subjects


• 105mm has AF-S which means I can get better insect shots because of the silence( and the 105 mm range)



• I don't know why I should prefer the 85mm 1.4 over the 105mm, when the 85mm may only have AF speed as an advantage, though I am not so sure if it is faster

so as you can see, I'm leaning towards 105mm f/2.8 or 85mm f/1.8 and less towards the 85mm f/1.4. However, I don't want to finalize the decision as many also claims that the 85mm f/1.4 is so good.

Any professional insights to add in helping me make the decision?

Answer

This is all very personal of course. I have the 85mm 1.8, and a friend has the 1.4. I would gladly do an even swap, but at more than double the price, it wouldn't be worth it to me to pay extra for the 1.4. If I did weddings maybe I could justify it, but I'd rather put the savings into something else. It's a bit more solidly built, slightly better IQ, but for me, no, not worth the extra cost.

I also have the 105mm macro. I get a lot more use out of it than the 85mm lens. I use the 85mm solely for portraits (but when I do people shots it's my go to lens).

I never use the 105mm for portraits. It's usable, but it doesn't have the bokeh of the 85mm lenses. Doesn't AF that fast either. For portraits I either use the 85mm or an 80-200 zoom, which towards the 200mm end throws the backgrounds out of focus and has nice bokeh.

AF on the macro is especially slow, and hunts a bit, at macro distances - you may be manually focusing up close. The VR is sometimes usable doing hand-held garden shots (less than 1:1). I've never known AF noise to scare off insects, but I could be wrong.

What I would recommend is finding an old 105mm AF-D. They would be half the price or less than the VR. Buy one of those, plus the 85mm 1.8 and you can have both for the price of the other lenses (85mm 1.4 or 105mm VR).