Topic: Canon 85 1.8 (Read 3175 times)

Jeremy Roussak · « **on:** March 11, 2009, 06:25:29 am »

I've been offered a second-hand Canon 85mm f1.8. Mint condition, about a year old,. The vendor is a friend and colleague, so we both want to agree a deal that's reasonable. He has a crop-frame DSLR and the length is wrong for what he wants to do (his 50mm is better), so it's been seldom used.

What would be a fair price? They're in fairly short supply in the UK at the moment, but there's a new one in a local shop for £320.

Thanks

Jeremy

Boris_Epix · « **Reply #1 on:** March 11, 2009, 06:38:36 am »

A quick word of caution. My copy of the 85 1,8 I had a couple years back was a GREAT lense on the Canon 1Ds. It was quite ok on the 1D MK2 (some pix with harsh backlighting displayed purple fringing). With the Canon 1Ds MK2 the lens was barely useable as it was giving me purple fringing in about 40% of the shots. Now some raw converters today will do a better job than DPP back in the 1Ds MK2 days but I can't say that I expect the 85 1,8 to perform better on a higher pixel body like the 1Ds MK3.

I gave my 85mm away for free to the guy that bought my 1Ds MK2.

Jeremy Roussak · « **Reply #2 on:** March 13, 2009, 04:40:54 am »

Quote from: Boris_Epix

A quick word of caution. My copy of the 85 1,8 I had a couple years back was a GREAT lense on the Canon 1Ds. It was quite ok on the 1D MK2 (some pix with harsh backlighting displayed purple fringing). With the Canon 1Ds MK2 the lens was barely useable as it was giving me purple fringing in about 40% of the shots. Now some raw converters today will do a better job than DPP back in the 1Ds MK2 days but I can't say that I expect the 85 1,8 to perform better on a higher pixel body like the 1Ds MK3.

I gave my 85mm away for free to the guy that bought my 1Ds MK2.

Thanks for the tip. I'll be using it on a 5dII. Your experience doesn't tally well with reviews of the lens: were these simultaneous trials, or might something have happened to it between cameras?

I'm going to borrow it over the weekend to see how it performs.

Does anyone have any ideas on price?

Jeremy

Ken Bennett · « **Reply #3 on:** March 16, 2009, 01:27:26 pm »

Quote from: kikashi

Does anyone have any ideas on price?

Check KEH.com. The prices are in US$, but they are a good used camera store.

Ben Rubinstein · « **Reply #4 on:** March 16, 2009, 02:33:16 pm »

The lens is well known for purple fringing on the edges of highlights wide open. It disappears when you stop down and you can just try prising mine out of my cold dead fingers...

Jeremy Roussak · « **Reply #5 on:** March 17, 2009, 05:05:58 am »

Quote from: pom

The lens is well known for purple fringing on the edges of highlights wide open. It disappears when you stop down and you can just try prising mine out of my cold dead fingers...

Thanks. I played with it over the weekend and have paid £250 for it. I like it very much. I found it hard to use wide open (but I think trying will improve my technical abilities) but I thought by f4 it was lovely, very sharp indeed.

Jeremy

Ben Rubinstein · « **Reply #6 on:** March 17, 2009, 05:58:30 am »

Quote from: kikashi

Thanks. I played with it over the weekend and have paid £250 for it. I like it very much. I found it hard to use wide open (but I think trying will improve my technical abilities) but I thought by f4 it was lovely, very sharp indeed.

Jeremy

I also paid 250 quid for mine some years back, I use it almost always wide open, it's an incredibly sharp lens. Don't use off center points on a 5D, they are horribly innaccurate wide open if you can get them to lock in the first place. Focus recompose is rarely that big an issue even at f1.8.

Ken Bennett · « **Reply #7 on:** March 17, 2009, 12:09:13 pm »

Quote from: kikashi

I found it hard to use wide open (but I think trying will improve my technical abilities) but I thought by f4 it was lovely, very sharp indeed.

Note that the stock focusing screen shows far more depth of field than you actually get wide open. (That is, things that appear sharp through the viewfinder often are not. This especially applies to backgrounds, but it also applies to critical focusing wide open.)

You might lock down the camera on a tripod and test this. Focus on a close subject, shoot a frame wide open, display it on the LCD screen, then look back and forth at the screen and through the viewfinder and check the apparent DOF (through the finder) and the real DOF (in the actual shot.) Note any differences.

Canon sells a focusing screen that does a better job showing what's actually in focus, but it's much darker and it's difficult to use with slower lenses. I have one of these on my long lens camera, and it works well with a fast 85, but it's dark on a 70-200/2.8 and almost unusable on my 300/4. (But it does show a better view of the actual DOF wide open.)

Again, this applies when focusing the camera too. I often see someone's eye in focus, but find that it's just a little off when processing the file. Manual focus is almost totally useless -- how can I trust manual focus when the focusing screen shows a sharp subject even when it's not sharp? Making sure that my lenses are calibrated with my bodies so the AF works properly is the key to fixing this. Also, shooting a lot of frames helps.

Note that all this applies when shooting at f/1.8 (or f/1.2, 1.4, even f/2). Once you stop down to f/4, you get enough leeway in focus that it's no longer an issue. Also, around f/4 is when the apparent DOF and actual DOF merge, depending on the lens, and subject distance.

Hope you enjoy the lens. It's quite a nice and useful focal length, both on full frame and crop frame cameras.

Author Topic: Canon 85 1.8 (Read 3175 times)