First thoughts on 85 1.2

So I finally got a chance to try out my 85 1.2 for the first time this weekend.


Here are my initial thoughts/findings:


1. At 1.2 the purpleish and green color fringe is unbelieveably high.


2. Its alittle long on a 1.6 body, but I knew that before buying.


3. Build quality is excellent.


4. Sharpness didnt blow me out of the water like I thought it would, primes are praised for being very sharp compared to zooms, but my 70-200 2.8 IS from initial tests is as sharp if not sharper.


5. It was noticable at larger apertures but it seems to focus in front.


Below is an example at shot with a 40D at 1.2 (thats why I bought it). It was processed in ACR and finished off in Photoshop. The blur is amazing to me. The fringe isnt too noticable in this example. I focues on his eye and didnt recompose, to me it seems like the grass and leaves right in front of his feet are sharper then his facial features.


Let me know your thoughts, I will post more later.


Thanks


Joel


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100% Crop at 1.2 Notice the purpleish color on the guitar


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Hi Joel,





Enjoy the lens, it's certainly challenging to focus and not accidentally re-compose by just slightly moving inadvertantly!


I like your first shot a lot. I can't really judge if the face or the grass/leaves are sharper...


I did notice some color fringing wide open in out-of-focus areas..


Regarding sharpness:


Keep in mind, that it's an amazing piece of glass that has a very large max aperture. The next step would be a Leica Noctilux! So wide open, sharpness is a little compromised compared to your 70-200 2.8. If you stop this lens down, it'll soar past the 70-200 sharpness wise.


enjoy!

Thanks Tom, I didnt stray to far from 1.2-2.8 during this shoot. I will have to try some later this week at some smaller apertures to see how sharp this lens can go.


Im hoping the outof focus was user error, which can more easily be fixed. When I use it again around 1.2 Im going to mount it to the tripod and try auto vs manual focus.


Thanks


Joel

Nice, please report if your piece might exhibit front/backfocusing.


You could try to fine-tune the AF with focus-adjustments on your 50D?

Unfortunately Im shooting with the 40D so no AF focus adjustment.


Thanks


Joel

My mistake, sorry! Thought you wrote 50D...

Hi Joel,


I think that looking at the body position the grass in front of the feet is at the same distance of the eyes. Try the position and look down, you will see that your eyes are in front of your feet.


On the other end the feet are in very close to the center of the frame, that could be sharper at 1.2, while the eyes are close to the corner. Stopping down could improve this aspect.


Do you have the version I or II of the lens?


Ciao

Hey Gian,


I have version II, just recieved in from B&H Thursday.


Thanks


Joel

Congratulation it is a great lens. I am sure you will love it after a little while to manage it.


I rented one few times and I always found focusing very challenging. I also think it is a better head shot lens than a full body lens. When you are close to the subject and focus is accurate it is unbeatable.


Enjoy.

Just spent some time in the living room shooting around at different things. Focusing seemed pretty spot on , acouple miss focus's but nothing major.


I shot a newspaper at about 8 ft and it deffinitlly sharpened up nice around 2.8-5.6


The color and contrast is also very good with this lens.


Thanks


Joel

I agree your focus on the face is not clear.





Did you use single point focus?

<span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"]Yup single point focus right on his left eye. [:D]


<span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"]Alot of the shots from that day seem to be all pretty much front focused by alot, but while testing it today, I didnt see much of a difference between auto and manual focus, both were pretty much spot on. But I will be testing it more this week on live subjects so we will see what happens.


Thanks


Joel


I will note one thing, I know I have read this before somewhere, but my batteries "die" really quickly, the meter will show them really low, and then say there dead, but I turn it off and back on and Im back in business except for the meter saying that they are low.

The 85 1.2 is a tough lens to use, but I can get some great shot swith it! I read a lot about it before I bought it, and the thing I keep remembering people that owned it saying that it wasn't a lens that you throw on the camera and get amazing results. It takes some getting used to;) That's true for me. I'm nowhere near used to using it, but it makes me look forward to a point when I can do the lens justice;)





Have fun!