Color, sharpness, blurr

big and expensisve

I know what is in your head. Get the cheaper non L lens or this one!!!!
I had the same problem...:)
If money is not an issue then forget the 1.4.
I am a wedding photographer. 85L 1.2 is the lens which I would never sell.
I also have the 35L, 17 40L and 28 70L. People talk about everything but at the end what matters is whether you can produce the "WOW" experience (i.e. when somebody finds your pictures magical) The 1.4 doesn't provide that. You will always feel that something is missing and you will always wish you had paid more and purchased the 1.2. I know I went through the same.
There are a couple of excellent shots on my site. http://www.haringphotography.com
Look for the blond girl and the guy on the beach in the engagement session. The wide lens was the 35L but the other pictures were created with the 85L 1.2…:):)
I hope it helps.

WOWWWW!

Great lens! Good image quality and nice blurrrrr….:) However the lens has some back-front focusing issues. I have a it on a Canon 5D and sometimes pictures are totally out of focus. My Canon 28-70 or 17-40 never had this kind of problem...Any suggestion? Furthermore, it is a heavy lens.
I mainly use it for wedding photography. www.usafromabove.com If you want to see samples.

Light gathering abilities, image quality, background blur, build, great environmental lens

Cost, a bit of a learning curve, slow AF and hunts a bit, not quite as contrasty as the 1.8

Great lens for portraiture and very good for indoor activities and can be used for sports, but takes special care. What an incredible piece of equipment. I have been using the 135L, 70-200 IS and also the 85 1.8 for my portraiture work, which is the main crux of my business. I was previously pretty happy with the results of the 1.8, the flexibility of the 70-200 IS. I was and still impressed by the 135L, but found it a bit to long for 3/4 or waist up pose. I had been using the 70-200 IS and getting what I though were pretty good results. Then I got this lens. I now have 2. This is an absolutely amazing product. Yes, many have said that the 1.8 is close, which is true, but the difference in sharpness compared @ 1.8, 2.0 and 2.8 goes to the L. Also the BG blur attained by this lens is amazing. The 135L is also incredible, but in a different way. My portrait work has nit a new high, both because of the quality of this lens, and because I am inspired by the image quality to try new and different ideas, and I have a new excitement in my portraiture. this lens is so good, that I feel the need to back it up with another 85L. Yes it is expensive to do so, but I am a portrait photographer. Also great for any event work inside and can be used for indoor sports, but it does not focus very fast. You may get missed shots, or you could go to zone focusing, esp those of youu like me, who cut their teeth on an FM2, or similar MF camera. I am really nuts about this prime. For me it is a must have.

Similar Products Used:

Canon 135L
Canon 70-200 2.8 IS
Canon 70-200 2.8 non-IS
Canon 85 1.8

Bokeh. Bokeh. Bokeh! No one will mistake you for an amateur with this lens. You'll know you have arrived as a photographer when you look down the maul of this beast. You are getting serious indeed! Light gathering capabilities: I shot regularly at 1/6000 of a second at ISO 160. Can handhold up to 1/100 of a second, so I've certainly got some wiggle room! Balance of the weight is good on my camera. I don't feel that the camera is going to fall over with this lens attached.

Cost. Cost. Cost! Demanding to use wide open. Easy to miss your focus and you'll just get a blur. Focus ring only operates when camera is on and metering is activated. Front element does extend over the very large focusing range this lens has. You have to focus to infinity to let the lens return to normal before you can store it, and you'll forget to do this before you turn the camera off.

This is a very unusual lens, being so fast and expensive. You know that. You also know this lens is very big (about the size and diameter of a coffee mug) and heavy. What is less apparent is the bokeh on this lens. Others have addressed this, but I'd like to offer some further observations, even though I am a new comer to this lens. You can really get some strange effects with this lens that perhaps no other Canon lens at least can duplicate. The smoothness of the out of focus areas are amazing. I'll post some pics of this on this site. What you do have to deal with at f1.2 is a very shallow DOF. This creates the bokeh, but something in your frame has to be sharp. So this is an extremely demanding lens, not for the casual shooter. It's priced out of their reach anyway and Canon has done them a favor. You can get some serious purple fringing with this lens wide open, and even stopped down to f2. You'll see this in very high contrast areas, like a tree's limbs across a very bright sky. I'm using it to shoot some closeups where the contrast is not too high and I'm extremely pleased with the results so far. Nothing else compares to the smooth, almost luminous bokeh I see. I colors are extraordinarily blended into a very rich pallete, almost like a painter came along and filled in my photo with brush strokes.

Customer Service

Not needed.

Similar Products Used:

Canon 135mm f2 - another bokeh superstar

Build is great. Durability is tops. Wideopen sharpness is excellent. Internal focusing helps when skittish animals are watching you.

Auto focus is dead slow. Wide open focus suffers in the 10D viewfinder. Takes up plenty of camera bag space.

Having previously owned a 85 f/1.8 Nikkor and a Zeiss 85 f/1.4, I can say that the EOS f/1.2 is the sturdiest and easiest to hold standard lens of the lot. I had an accident and dropped the 85 onto concrete from 3' and it is still working as adverstised. Build quality is excellent, and low light images are sharper than either of the other two lenses.

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor 85 mm f/1.8 AI Zeiss 85 mm f/1.4

see above

Slow AF, not a sports lens but I can live with that

This is defenitly my fauvorite lens. Excellent colors and detail throughout the entire range.

Similar Products Used:

EF 50/1,4 usm, EF24-70/2,8L, EF 70-200/2,8L IS

F/1.2, Durability,

See summary above

Let's face it. Every 85mm lens exelent. I believe 85~105mm are some sort of sweet spot designing finest 35mm SLR lens. sure 50mm sharp as hell but wide open performance never up to the 85mm quality. Another contender was medium range tele macro lens but these are totally different beast there is no way directly comparing these two group. For example 85mm/1.4 and 100/2.8 Macro lens, macro range to about 1 m(30cm~100cm) regardless any aperture setting macro lens is the best but ,at 1m~infinity, 85mm/1.4 Are superior even at same aperture setting. Eos 85/1.2 was typical fast moderate tele lens. I Concentrate on 7 finest 35mm lens comparing by excluding 100mm range macro lens. Luckly I own Five of them and two are rented. Here is the Magnificent 7. Eos 85/1.2 USm(I own) Eos 85/1.8 USM(rented) Nikkor 85/1.4 AFD(I own) Nikkor 85/1.8 AFD(Rented) Maxxum 85/1.4 AFD(My wife's) Pentax 85/1.4 A(Not FA Version)(I own) Zeiss 85/1.4 MM(I own) Conclusion Zeiss 85/1.4MM--> Best portrait lens, best shadow detail, Compact size but substantial feel, High Built quality,best over all shapness at f/1.4. No AF, Even their AF Version and Contax AF system are pathetic. Nikkor 85/1.4 all around portrait lens. Best AF 85/1.4 lens, Built quality,Second worst flare among 85/1.4 group,too contrasty, so so shadow detail. Maxxum 85/1.4 real keeper Most cosistent optical performance interm of subject distance, aperture settings, best edge performace. Second best AF Performance My wife's favorate cute lens. at f/1.4 every other optical performance was exellent except for resolution. slightly soft wide often. But I suspect durabilty will be the last in 85/1.4 group even though sophiscatically manufactured. Eos 85/1.2 slow AF due to the heavy focucing lens group. heavy, But exellent manual focucing feel. exellent wide aperture performance, Highest built quality(f/1.2,f/1.8f/2.0,f/1.4). Lowest contrast, flare prone lens, average edge performance, Average shadow detail. Overall exellent super fast 85mm lens. Pentax 85/1.4 A compact,The best optical performance near 1M~3m. But the last optical performance at subject at infinity especialy resolution wise, The best flare resistance lens in the group. So so AF performance. But typical portrait range from 1.5m~5m At f/1.4. Simply You'll never see anything it before. 85/1.8 Eos and nikkor f/1.8 were neck and neck Built quality

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see above summary

Large apperture, light catcher, and L built.

Very slow usm focusing, but i use it manually so... For concerts use take care of front light, you may have some circles on the pics...

Humm 1.2 that's a dream... 6 or 7 years ago ive seen mounted on an Eos 1... I was dreaming. My dream become true. I buy an used one in Paris for about 1500 euros. The largest aperure was mine... I love concert's photos and it's the best for middle size hall...

Customer Service

Not yet...

Similar Products Used:

200 1.8, 28/70 2.8, 70/200 2.8, 50 1.8

Excellent resolution, excellent contrast and superb color balance. Sharpness and resolution would be just behind the legendary 200 1.8L EF. Pinpoint light sources are rendered accurately, unlike the brand N guys which look like little comets. Light soaking 1.2 apeture is incredible! Optics are top notch. No annoying aberrations when shooting wide open (or stopped down for that matter). Fit and finsh are first rate, typical of the Canon L series.

Slow focusing due to internal helical pitch. This was done purposely to allow for fine focus adjustment. Perhaps redesign with 3 speed/selectable switch as found on 300 2.8L EF, 200 1.8L EF, 400 2.8L EF & 600 4L EF? Large element next to the mount - be very careful when mounting this lens to the body.

A must have lens for indoor sports. Exceptionally fast 1.2 apeture is a full stop faster than the 200 1.8L EF that I carry as "standard issue". Why people still CONSTANTLY try to compare this to a NIKON lens is beyond me. Try this with a NIKON lens. Shoot a starfield time exposure. With Nikon you''ll see coma and spherical aberration, even when stopped down. The 85 1.4 Nikon ED and other Nikons are NOTORIOUS for this. Noct lenses? Don''t waste your time. They do the same thing. Canon got it right with aspherical lenses back in ''71 and Nikon is still trying to catch up since they''re still using decades old SPHERICAL lenses rather than the modern ASPHERICAL lens. Still, newer Nikon aspherical elements won''t have the precision of Canon which got it right several decades ago. Pictures of starfields (the MOST demanding pictures by far) turn out pinpoint sharp, edge to edge with this lens. It''s something the astronomy field doesn''t want to make public since they''re mostly shooting with old Nikon (they fell for the hype of the name) lenses. For sports, especially the poorly lit indoor variety, the 1.2 apeture works great. Nice and sharp wide open and gets even better when stopped down. Makes a great portrait lens. May be TOO sharp for the people in the portraits! Subjectively, this lens would rate just behind the 200 1.8L EF lens at f/5.6 to f/8. Wide open, 200 1.8L vs 85 1.2L, the 200 will kill this lens. But then the 200 will KILL EVERY LENS out there on sharpness! 200 1.8L would rate as a reference "10" while the 85 1.2L would be close to a "9" wide open. Stopped down, the margin gets even more narrow. A 10 (200 1.8) versus a 9.5 (85 1.2) Definitely holds it''s own ground. 85 1.2L EF Canon versus Nikon''s 85 1.4D. I invite you to try this. Shoot both of them WIDE OPEN at any multi pinpoint light source or a star constellation (which is EXTREMELY revealing of any flaws in a lens). Canon''s 85 1.2L is sharp and pinpoint to the very edge of the frame. Nikon? YOU''LL LOSE NEARLY 75% of the frame due to aberrations!!! Focusing ring is easy to reach in tight situations. THERE IS FULL TIME MANUAL focusing (though it''s electronic) with this lens. Is this lens considered expensive when compared to the other guys? Not with it''s performance WIDE OPEN. For those that are fans of Nikon and think the 85 1.4 can do no wrong?

Customer Service

Not needed so far.

Similar Products Used:

Canon 300 2.8L EF, Canon 200 1.8L EF, Canon 200 2.8L II EF, Canon 70-200 2.8L EF, Canon 28-70 2.8L EF (L series lenses, which is what this review is about), various Nikon (80-200 2.8), Minolta (70-210

Bright lens. Beautiful pictures are very possible.

AF powered by a snail...too serious a flaw for me to ignore.

Up front I am not a user of this lens but nearly was. Photos from it that I have seen are stunning. You can shoot wide open and be happy with the result. I nearly purchased a second hand one (hence the $1000 price) and am going to tell you why I didn''''''''t. It''''''''s the AF. It is incredibly slow. If I had ordered this lens via mail order I would have sent it back as faulty, but the slow AF is a known "feature" of the product. Frankly if I am going to have to focus manually I would buy the FD mount version (and am still very tempted to do so!) for my A1. If this lens focused faster I would have gone into debt to own it. The front element is like a gem stone, a real beauty, and looking through it once it was on my EOS 1 I nearly reached for my sun glasses...OK joking, but it is an optical beauty. If you are small framed you may find it heavy (the guys in the camera shop in Singapore were all smaller than me and "warned" me of its weight. I''''''''m 6''''''''+ and did not find the weight noticable. it balances perfectly on the EOS1 with booster. It may feel unpleasant on the lighter bodies and/or without the battery/booster packs. Lastly, Canon should do the following: Replace the AF motor with something fast or make an 85mm f1.4 like Nikon. This is far more cost effective/practical and nearly convinced me to go Nikon when I was deciding on which AF system to buy into.

Similar Products Used:

80-200mm FD mount. 105mm Sigma EX macro, Canon 100mm USM macro - a cracker lens despite my review on it ;-)