We photographed this spectacular 1977 Ford LTD II for Collectible Automobile magazine in July. This beautiful Ford has only 24,000 miles (38,624 km) on it and is completely original, including the factory CB radio and antenna. The current owner just purchased this car from the original owner.

This was our first opportunity using the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 85mm f1.8G lens we recently purchased. The goal of automobile photography is to make the vehicle look as good as possible, and for nearly 40 years I’ve been looking for the perfect solution to separate the vehicle from the foreground and background. When we were photographing with a 4×5 view camera, I used 210mm and 305mm lenses, which are equivalent to 70mm and 100mm lenses in 35mm format. These came close to the “bokeh” I was looking for, but even with careful tilts and swings, I often had to stop down too much to fully blur the background while leaving the vehicle sharp.

Quite simply, the Nikon AF-S Nikon 85mm f1.8G⎘ lens is a dream come true! Look for these photographs in a 2023 issue of Collectible Automobile⎘ magazine.