In this guide, I've assembled my picks of the best portrait lenses for Nikon cameras, no matter whether you shoot with a Nikon DSLR, Z-mount mirrorless, or have gone for a full-frame (FX) sensor or opted for a lighter model with an APS-C (DX) sensor.
The general consensus among photographers is that the best lens for portraiture is a short-ish telephoto prime with a large maximum aperture. This provides the best means of flattering your subjects and separating them from the background with a shallow depth of field.
Whether you're using a flagship professional camera like the Z8, a beginner's DSLR like the D3500, or a mid-range enthusiast option such as a Z fc, there is a fantastic portrait lens for you. So let's get to it!
Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer – and has tested more primes and zooms than most people have had hot dinners! He is our go-to man whenever a new Nikon lens is released, and has personally tested the lenses on this list.
Best Nikon portrait lenses
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Best FX mirrorless lens
The Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S is the optimal portrait lens for full-frame mirrorless Z-mount cameras, for most people, in terms of its balance of performance and price. It's super-sharp, thanks to a sophisticated internal construction, and produces images with dynamic, natural-looking bokeh and gorgeous detail, even at its minimum focus distance of 0.8m.
Other great features include full weather-sealing and an ergonomic control ring that is designed for tactile operation, while the Nano Crystal Coat helps to control flare and ghosting. However, its f/1.8 maximum aperture isn't as fast as some other lenses in this guide.
Read our full Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S review
Best f/1.4 prime
This Viltrox lens really lives up to its ‘pro’ credentials. Build quality feels rock-solid and features extensive weather seals, and handling is a dream. It comes complete with an aperture control ring that has an accompanying click/de-click switch, and there’s a customizable function button that I tend to use for AF-hold. And there’s also an AF/MF focus mode switch to save the effort of fumbling around in camera menus.
High-grade optics comprise 15 elements arranged in 11 groups, featuring three ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements, no less than nine HRI (High Refractive Index) elements, and one aspherical element. HD Nano multi-layer coatings are applied to minimize ghosting and flare, and a keep-clean fluorine coating is applied to the front element.
Autofocus comes courtesy of a VCM (Voice Coil Motor), which is both very rapid and virtually silent in operation, as well as ensuring super-smooth autofocus transitions if your portraiture turns to video capture. Image quality is simply gorgeous, with ultra-crisp sharpness and clarity coupled with beautifully smooth bokeh.
See our full Viltrox AF 85mm f/1.4 Pro review
Best for headshots
The word ‘Plena’ is defined as ‘the condition or quality of being full’. There are a number of ways you can interpret this in the context of the Nikon Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena, as it's a lens that is ‘full’ in many ways. It delivers superior sharpness and image quality right across the full extent of the frame, thanks to an optical construction that's packed full of high-quality glass. It also produces full, luscious bokeh in the defocused areas of images, which is perfect for portraiture.
At a focal length of 135mm, this lens specializes in tighter head-and-shoulders portraits, and it delivers spectacular frames again and again, even when used at its maximum aperture setting.
See our full Nikon Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena review
Best budget lens
Fast primes can be notoriously big, heavy, and expensive. This Viltrox sets its sights a little lower, with an f/2 aperture rating, but don’t be fooled. It’s still more than capable of delivering a tight depth of field for portraiture, along with dreamy bokeh for defocused backgrounds.
The first of a new ‘Evo’ line from Viltrox, the lens succeeds in its aims of shoehorning excelling handling performance into a compact, lightweight package, and at a very affordable price. As such, you get a dedicated aperture control ring with a click/de-click switch, a customizable function button, and an AF/MF focus mode switch. And despite the downmarket price tag, you also get a metal rather than plastic lens mount, which features a weather-seal gasket and a USB-C port for applying firmware upgrades. A hood is also supplied with the lens.
The optical design is based on 10 elements arranged in 8 groups, featuring two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements and two HR (High Refractive index) elements, aiming to boost sharpness and clarity while minimizing chromatic aberrations. Ideal for portraiture, the Viltrox delivers excellent wide-open sharpness with beautiful bokeh, in equal measure.
See our full Viltrox AF 85mm f/2 Evo
Best pro lens
Sometimes, you've no choice but to award a lens five stars. The Nikon Z 85mm f/1.2 S may be prohibitively expensive for most users, and it may be a chunky and heavy monster that feels like a back injury waiting to happen, but it's also an absolutely stunning portrait lens that scooped up a deserved slew of awards on its release in 2023.
Nikon may have been a little late to the 85mm f/1.2 party, but what an entrance it made – this lens dazzles, with stellar central sharpness and delectable creamy bokeh at the maximum aperture of f/1.2. Fringing, coma, and lateral chromatic aberration are all effectively negated, while Nikon’s Nano Crystal Coat keeps flare and ghosting under control.
See our full Nikon Z 85mm f/1.2 S review
Best DX mirrorless lens
Compared with full-frame cameras, APS-C models like the Z50 II can struggle to deliver a tight depth of field. That’s because DOF is more dependent on the ‘actual’ focal length rather than the ‘effective’ focal length after the 1.5x crop factor is applied. To compensate, I love that this lens has an ultra-fast f/1.2 aperture, which is capable of delivering a really tight depth of field at typical shooting distances for portraiture.
Making the most of the tight depth of field, the Viltrox combines superb sharpness with beautifully smooth bokeh in defocused areas, with a natural-looking roll-off between the two. It’s a great portrait lens that enables you to really isolate the main subject within a scene by blurring fussy-looking backgrounds.
Handling is excellent and although the lens is necessarily a bit chunky due to the super-fast aperture rating, it’s well stocked in features. These include an aperture control ring with a click/de-click switch, a handy AF/MF focus switch, and a customizable function button.
See our full Viltrox AF 56mm f/1.2 Pro review
Best FX DSLR lens
Sigma’s 85mm f/1.4 Art lens seemed to have been a long time coming. So, was it worth the wait? It certainly feels the part; at 1,130g, it’s only 300g lighter than Nikon’s 70-200mm f/2.8E VR. It has an electromagnetically controlled diaphragm for greater accuracy in high-speed continuous mode and also features weather seals.
The autofocus is extremely fast and accurate, and image quality is excellent, with a wonderfully soft and creamy bokeh, although the lens isn’t as sharp as some of its rivals. Color fringing, coma, distortion, ghosting, and flare are all negligible. All in all, the Sigma 85mm packs a heavyweight punch that’s in keeping with its construction.
See our full Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG HSM | A review
Best budget FX DSLR lens
This is the smallest and lightest lens in its (full frame) class, measuring just 80mm long and weighing a modest 350g. Build quality is very good too, down to the weather-sealed mounting plate and the inclusion of a single aspherical element. This lens is superbly sharp, even shooting wide open, although naturally the aperture doesn’t go as wide as an f/1.4 lens.
Vignetting is noticeable, while bokeh is beautifully soft, stopping down gives specular highlights a heptagonal appearance – a consequence of the diaphragm having seven rather than nine blades.
See our full Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.8G review
Best DX DSLR lens
This Art lens from Sigma’s Global Vision line-up is a heavyweight contender, one that’s almost twice the length and three times the weight of Nikon’s competing 50mm f/1.4 lens. It’s full-frame compatible, but undeniably hefty for a portrait lens on lightweight DX format bodies such as the Nikon D5600, tipping the scales at 815g. The relatively complex design incorporates 13 optical elements in all, including an aspherical element and three SLD (Special Low Dispersion) elements.
Construction feels reassuringly robust, but this lens does lack a weather seal on its mounting plate. An upside of the large front element is that vignetting is comparatively minimal here. Bokeh is deliciously creamy at f/1.4 and remains of exceptional quality even when stopping down a little. This is helped by a well-rounded aperture, based on nine diaphragm blades.
See our full Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM | Art review
Lab data and comparisons
The graphs below show the comparative performance of the lenses in this guide, based on our in-house lab tests. The full-frame compatible Nikon Z 135mm and both Nikon Z 85mm lenses lead the way for sharpness. The Viltrox APS-C format 56mm looks relatively unimpressive in terms of lab results but sharpness proved very good in our 'real world' tests.
As I'd expect for modern, high-quality prime lenses of standard to short telephoto focal lengths, distortion is minimal across the board and they all do well to minimize color fringing.
For more detailed graphs of each lens's performance, take a look at the graphs published in our full standalone reviews.
How to choose the best Nikon portrait lens
The criteria for the best portrait lens are actually quite specific, which helps narrow down the choices. First, they need to have a focal length of 85mm or thereabouts – this gives you a good working distance from your subject and eliminates the kind of unflattering distortion that a wide-angle would give you. Longer lenses, running from 105mm to 135mm, can be useful if you're focusing more on tighter head-and-shoulders portraits.
Second, a fast maximum aperture is key. This allows you to blur the background and get a shallow depth of field that focuses all the viewer's attention on your subject. You're looking for a lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.8 or even f/1.4 – the latter will typically be more expensive and physically larger. However, slower lenses can still offer exceptional optical quality, so don't think that you'll be getting an inferior optic if you go for an f/1.8. Premium lenses will even go to f/1.2, but you'll need a sizeable budget to afford one of these.
There are two key practical questions to answer before you buy a lens – are you using mirrorless or DSLR, and is your sensor size full-frame or APS-C (which Nikon refers to as FX and DX respectively). The two systems use different lens mounts — Z-mount for mirrorless, F-mount for DSLRs. F-mount lenses can be adapted to work with Z-mount mirrorless cameras, but if possible you are best off using a native Z-mount lens as this will better be able to take advantage of the system's strengths, like its fast communication between camera and lens.
Nikon DX-format mirrorless cameras and DSLRs have a 1.5x 'crop' factor. It's rare to get 'portrait' lenses designed specifically for APS-C cameras, but the crop factor means a 50mm lens will actually have an effective focal length of 75mm in full-frame camera terms, and this is enough to make them very good portrait lenses that are more compact and more affordable than regular 85mm 'portrait' lenses for full-frame cameras.
How we test lenses
We test lenses using both real world sample images and lab tests. Our lab tests are carried out scientifically in controlled conditions using the Imatest testing suite, which consists of custom charts and analysis software that measures resolution in line widths/picture height, a measurement widely used in lens and camera testing. We find the combination of lab and real-word testing works best, as each reveals different qualities and characteristics.
