70-200 2.8 IS II vs. 85 1.2 II for Portraits?

85L will be better in shallower DOF and better bokeh.  But for most studio photos if you stop down a bit, 70-200L II is as sharper as and AF faster.  70-200L II is already very sharp at f2.8 and also has nice bokeh and lots more versatile.

http://www.canonrumors.com/reviews/canonef70200f28lisi/

Press Correspondent wrote:

Too much blur for my taste. I realize there's a cult of background blur in the modern photographic community, but to me the images look unnatural. The subject doesn't look the same as when you look at it while taking a picture. This creates a cartoon effect as if the subject was cut out with scissors and glued on top of a flat cloudy pattern. Most will say, "great subject separation", but I will argue, loss of dimentionality and volume. I prefer less blur with a nice bokeh to retain the depth in the image.

Yeah, yeah, I already hear angry voices. No need to plead your loyalty to he cult. This is my personal opinion. I know you think it's "wrong", cause it's different from yours

When you've finished taking something personally that hasn't even been said yet - this is exactly the point of my post about DoF vs background blur and why it is very unhelpful to confuse them. The cardboard cutout effect doesn't come from using a very large aperture, it comes from using a long lens. That gives you the deadly triumvirate of foreshortening, subject in harsh focus, and background blurred out. OK for specimen shots of birds but not great for portraits. Actually I don't really like it for birds either but normally you have no choice.

To me the 85L II wins by huge margin in terms of Bokeh quality. I have both lenses and and in my opinion the 70-200 F2.8L IS II doesn't even come close in terms of Bokeh quality in fact, my old 70-200 F2.8L IS MK I has better bokeh than the MK II, so I only use the 70-200 F2.8 IS II for event shooting when zoom is , for portrait I prefer and mainly use the Sigma 50 1.4,  85L, 135L.

Dan_168 wrote:

To me the 85L II wins by huge margin in terms of Bokeh quality. I have both lenses and and in my opinion the 70-200 F2.8L IS II doesn't even come close in terms of Bokeh quality in fact, my old 70-200 F2.8L IS MK I has better bokeh than the MK II, so I only use the 70-200 F2.8 IS II for event shooting when zoom is , for portrait I prefer and mainly use the Sigma 50 1.4, 85L, 135L.

Your thoughts on the 135L compared to the 85L for outdoor portraiture head-shots to full-length. I think the OP might consider this lens. (135L)

Its simple

85/1.2 = 70.33

200/2.8= 71.43

So you have little bit (1.1 units) more bokeh with 70-200

- 85mm bokeh is smooth and beautiful, 70-200mm its nice too, but sometimes you can see more octagonal shapes.

- 70-200 is sharper and has better quality than 85mm (when you use 1.2)

-70-200 has more DoF, so if you make a had shoot, you can see clearly every part of head. With 85mm 1.2, when you focus eye, it will make blur nose, eyebrows,  hair, ears... sometimes it is beautiful when you do art shoots, or when you want to focus just eyes. Dont forget that when you focus one eye, sometimes it makes blur another eye, it depends from the position. Also, if you make a couple portrait shoot, it is too dificult to focus both of them with 1.2, they must be in same position, if one of them will be 1 inch closer to camera, one of them will be blurred. Sometimes you cant see difference in low resolution pictures, but if you look in 100% of hi resolution, you will be disappointed.

- 85mm is better for low light conditions

- 70-200 is very big lens, you can use it if you fight with someone

- 70-200 has IS image stabilizer

- 70-200 is good when yoy want to take paparazzi shoots.