Lord_arka is a master with the 85L!! Don't piss him off because he'll start posting many amazing shots he has taken with that lens that will make you cry with envy!! I for one am glad that finally we have the '85LMKII vs. 85f1.8 threads finally starting........makes this place a whole lot more entertaining!!
Guy Mancuso wrote:
Okay I guess i will jump in here. why i don't know but here it is pure and simple , different designs. let me explain this one.
This is exactly like leica glass with the 90 apo F2 and the 80 summi 1.4 and no different than the two canon 85's
First the 85 1.2 is a lens designed to be extremely sharp in the center with soft falloff to the corners . This is a bokeh character lens that has certain qualities. At the wide apertures say from F4 and above it will render the center sharp and the corners soft that is the design of the lens just like the Leica 80mm 1.4 at F4 down the two lenses start to hit equal ground in the corners. Basically you are getting two lenses in one. you get the character of tremdous bokeh from 1.2 to f4 so the falloff of softness is very delicate and smooth ( reread what i just said) this was cannons and leica's intent with these medium lenses because they are used a lot for portraits now if you want sharp in the corners you need to get to F4. And than the two lenses will have the same look to them.
Now the 85 1.8 and the Leica 90 apo are built differently for a different reason they are designed not for bokeh but for even sharpness across the full length of the image . so what you get here is not as sharp in the center at the full apertures but the corners match the center more equally in sharpness. Simple put these are more general purpose lenses , so the bokeh is less extreme as the wider faster glass, also cheaper to build at least the Canon 85 1.8 lens is the leica has aspherical glass and a whole lot more and really will blow the doors off of almost any lens but it was desined to be more equal acroos the frame and the corners sharper in the corners at the wider apertures which is fine but you lose the charactor of the wide open effects of the faster glass. is one better than the other no not really just depends on what you are after for me i have that fast bokeh lens of the 80 1.4 with a lot of charctor but if i want the sharpest image and more clinical look than I will reach for the 100 macro. Which is the sharpest lens in 35mm by many experts. so really guys you can fight this till the cows come home and you have but basically you are comparing a apple and a orange they are built and designed to do different things. Hope that helps a little but this is very evident in my Leica lenses and the same is true for canons. Is one better than the other , they answer really is no , just depends on the look of image you after.
I'm going to agree and disagree with the Leica man here
I agree that characteristics of sharp center and soft corners are more applicable to the faster of the two.
I somewhat disagree that this is "intended" by either Leica or Canon. Curvature of the plane of focus is a "natural" attribute of any lens and has to be corrected. The larger the aperture, the more difficult it is to correct. It also becomes a balancing act - every correction comes at some expense. So, when making a very fast portrait lens, a manufacturer has to decide when the correction is good enough, so other important qualities of the lens are retained.
The slower the lens, the easier it is to correct, and the less delicate the balance becomes.
Come to think of it, this is not much different from what Guy said, so I guess I'm not really disagreeing
He just called it "intention" and I called it "choice"
rceres wrote:
It's interesting to me to throw the older FD 85 1.2 into the mix. I'm not sure Canon made a good trade off when they went with the internal focusing on the EF version. Sure the lens stays the same size when focusing, but a much bigger size and heavier than the FD version to boot. Also more glass (more elements and groups). Perhaps a necessary trade off to get the autofocus into the mix. How does the summilux compare in this regard?
I do like the color rendition on the EF 85 1.2L. Someday I will certainly need to buy one I am sure....Show more →
Actually they didn't. The EF 85L does not have internal focusing. Just as the 85L FD it uses front focus design. The front of the EF 85L extends when focusing
abam wrote: "You may want to have your 85mm f1.2L adjusted before returning it."
excuses excuses. why would someone want to pay to have something adjusted, just to immediately afterward return it.
"The 1.2 does not 'blow away' the 1.8...that is simply e-fluff. "
i agree.
If he just bought it (and if he can return it, it seems to be a safe assumption that he did), Canon will adjust it for free.
Shoot your own tests then. If you read my post, I said that I think that they are close enough that sample variation will determine the outcome. In my case, the 1.2 is better.
Arrogance will get you nowhere! Guys like you told me the 1.2 is in a different league, the tests show..........................you were incorrect. What do you have to say now
Walter, you must have been shaking something awful.I never look at anything but 100% crops and a tripod doesn't make a difference for me at 1/1600 second.
Well, I am a bit of a caffeine addict... but I have noticed it's quite variable. Remember that's a 100% crop and you can hardly see any difference at regular size. Maybe 1 in 4 shots turn out like this. At first I thought it was autofocus lattitude, but comparing handheld vs. tripod shots showed otherwise. Remember this was at 200mm on a 1.6 crop camera, so you may not notice it at 1/1600th with larger sensors or shorter lenses. And hey, some people probably have steadier hands, though I'm not a trembler or anything.
Canonfan wrote:
Walter, you must have been shaking something awful.I never look at anything but 100% crops and a tripod doesn't make a difference for me at 1/1600 second.
I have put the 85mm 1.2 under very rigourous testing in the last 2 days. These are my final conclusions.
1. Yes, the 85 1.2 L is sharper then the 85 1.8. In fact it is sharper at 1.2, 1.4 and 1.8 then the 85 1.8 is at 1.8. It continues to be sharper through 8.0 which is the last aperture test I conducted. The added sharpness is apparent most at the edges of the frame on a full frame sensor SLR. The 85 1.8 show some distinct purple color frindging with streight lines at the edges of the frame. It was very obvious along the streight line of a roof I photographed. The 1.2 did not do this. Also the 1.2 showed more detail. The difference in the lenses however are less significant then I had hoped for. I guess i fell for the "mistique" of the 85 1.2 L. I can say for certain that in most situations these finding are not easily seen in a traditional 8x10 or 11x14 inch print. Both lenses are truly capable of A+ images. I liken it to two expensive cars. One costing 25,000 and the other 75,000. Though you have spent 3x more, you are not getting 3x the Quality. It is more like an additional 20% increase in quality.That you will barely notice when going to work everyday. But at a race track you definately will.
I never wanted this thread to be so heated, I just wanted to share my personal experiences. From reading this thread, I felt like I joined and exclusive golf club. One of which when I finally became a member and asked a fellow member : "what was the big deal after all?" the members of the club scorn me for uttering anything other then the statement that "the club is glorious". Oh well..........................just my .02 cents.
Oh come on Jeff.......I wanted to see a few more song lyrics, some more in-depth info from Guy (man he does know his stuff!), and I was hoping to see a couple of shots from Annayu (her shots are always inspirational!). But maybe you are right.........until another day, this thread should pass!!
lordarka wrote:
Arrogance is assuming that your L shoots like my L, or that your inability to get the results you want affects everyone else's ability.
Arka C.
Perhaps in this case but not always. Sometimes it is just, shall we say, clueless and without malice. I sent a shot of a road I had traveled to a person on a bicycling forum. It was done with the 85mm, doesn't matter which one to me, just that it was 85mm to compress the roadway/scenery. He was so enamored with the shot that he asked me how many megapixels the camera had as if that made the shot. I had sized it down to a 640 for web anyway. What he should have asked is what focal length did you use for that shot but as we know, there are certain buzz words associated with the "lesser schooled" photographers.
I have said it before and I will say it again, you can give some of the guys on these forums a beat up old Brownie and they will give you the money shots. That said, I can see the difference in the two lenses being discussed. With the L, you can see where the money went when it is that clear in the corners wide open. That said, I am more than happy with my lesser version for the sparkling quality and the lighter weight for foot travel.
