The lens gets good reviews as a macro lens. The Apparent lowish cost is down to limited aperture for a fixed focal lens and that its manufactured in China. Both of those cut costs.
To get my head around your 'looking for a good portrait/macro lens', I have looked at your gallery and the obvious question is what does your current lens not give you ?
Portrait and macro are not terms that normally appear together. Macro usually being very sharp is not the lens I would consider for female portraiture. Never yet met a lady yet who wants any skin blemishes to be faithfully recorded
. Of course if you are going to resort to gaussian blurr in pp for smoother skin tones then I will wonder why you want to use a razor sharp lens in the first place.
Lots of people use the 85mm f1.4 for portraits, but that is to take account of its shallow dof and creamy smooth bokeh. Neither of these properties equally apply to this lens. The 85mm f1.4 being specifically designed as a portrait lens for full frame 35mm.
Next to find out what kit you currently have I thought I might find a clue in your hello post.
So D3000 with 18-55mm kit lens. D3000 does limit you to AFS so that does limit options a lot. However remembering a previous post in The D7000 thread and reading your 'hello' the common theme is future upgrade to D7000 or D300, D300s. Any of those cameras mean your lens options can be extended to AFD, or AI/AIs manual focus, and there is a far wider range of focal lengths there.
Next in your hello thread I note your interests as fashion, natural beauty, portraiture, people and creativity.
Kit you are looking to aquire 70-200 f2.8VRII, 50mm f1.4 and 35mm f1.4. .......... just wondering where the 85mm micro lens fits into that lineup.
Your description of the lens in this post makes me wonder if you are being seduced by marketing ...... " its a IF 85mm F3.5 lens that has a macro compatibility aswell as it can go as close up as 0.286 m/0.9 ft. (life size), ED + VR II + 1:1 = £350 sounds too good to be true?? "
If you have a picture post it in this thread along with improvements you are hoping for from a portrait lens. That will open it up to general advice from some of our portrait aces of which I am not one.
Don
PS : Thinking about it posting a pic and asking questions might get more attention in a new thread without Nikon as a header. Canon, Pentax, Olympus portrait gurus are less likely to pass it over then.
