Versatile lens highly recommended for first prime.

Any review of the 85mm f/1.8 seems to concentrate on it's abilities on full frame and shooting wide open. For this review, I'm going to look at the lens from a different perspective - that of a crop sensor owner.

Most times, you'll see the 50mm f/1.8 recommended as a first prime for a crop sensor owner. Honestly, while the image sharpness of the nifty fifty can be nothing short of amazing, the drawbacks that go with it are quite frankly not worth the frustration that go with it. I think that the 85mm should take it's place.

It's a cheaper canon lens, exceptionally well built, very fast aperture, very fast focus.

Purpose: 135mm equivalent which is a long portrait, short tele, tack sharp stopped down, very nice OOF areas

MFA adjust: on this 12 year old copy, I had to add +12-+14 to compensate for the shift. Canon will calibrate this lens so MFA is not (as) needed.

Portraits: You're looking at head and shoulder shots - unless you have a LOT of distance. the sweet spot is at about f/4 but remember this is an 85mm lens so that's 21.25mm of aperture. that's about the same as a 50mm @ f/2.4. To me, the combination of magnification and softer OOF falloff at f/4 with this lens is ideal.

Sports: Touted as an indoor sports lens, because of the higher resolution, you can even crop it further without bemoaning quality loss. I used it today at a swimming gala and did not miss the extra focal length of my 18-135mm STM. With kids, you've got an ideal outdoor sports lens at 5-10m.

Street/candids: at 5-10m again it gives you just enough distance to stay out of trouble but the magnification for great detail.

Conclusion:

While I can see the 50mm f/1.4 which I own as being a great portrait lens, the 85mm has a place in my bag more for sports. It's more consistent than the 50mm but given the choice, I'd probably look at the 100mm f/2 lens instead but have yet to put this through the paces.

As a fast aperture quick focusing tele, I think it beats that 50mm f/1.8 and f/1.4 in terms of consistency and results quality by a country mile. The only thing missing is IS but the price more than makes up for it.

...another thing missing is correction for PF/LoCA. Purple haze Jimi Hendrix would be proud of.

rebel99 wrote:

i have lots of respect for my canon 85 f1.8 lens. it is fast in every way, sharp, light weight, less money, and a great value. it has a bit of CA but can be taken care of in PP. there is nothing not to like about this lens

syd

I have this lens, and I think it's great when it works right, but it's not a lens to get on an entry or consumer level body. You need a body with micro focus adjustments as the lens has a bad habit of front focusing my shots at wide apertures. The shots are still decent for desktop or small prints, but it's not perfectly focused. I'm not a pixel peeper and I don't mind slightly  out of focus shots, but for commercial shoots, it can look really bad when half my shots taken with this lens aren't perfectly focused.

Abu Mahendra wrote:

...another thing missing is correction for PF/LoCA. Purple haze Jimi Hendrix would be proud of.

Abu is soooooo right about that  I have used two different 85's and they both had the same problem.  Out doors in bright sun light with a high contrast shot, you can get HUGE amounts of purple fringing.  This can be so bad its very hard to save the picture  For the money it is a very good lens if you can live with the PF.

Dave

On the new mirrorless bodies, the EF 85mm f1.8 is even better than on the DSLR, IMO.

tdbmd wrote:

On the new mirrorless bodies, the EF 85mm f1.8 is even better than on the DSLR, IMO.

Fully agree on that. I used this lens a lot on my 5D Mk III, then I had it on R6. Not only it focuses noticeably better on R6 (which is somehow understandable) but it is a bit sharper with better contrast. Like others EF glasses I have.

It is not a perfect lens. It is quite conditions dependent. It can make very nice sharp shots wide opened same as misty fringing festival. Mastering the lens' capabilities is rewarded with very good looking pictures.

Stopped down to f/2.2 it still delivers its creamy soft rich bokeh while improving sharpness and contrast to levels which are absolutely ok and non distracting even at 1:1 observation of R6 files. Also the way this lens renders the image is very apealing.

Focusing is basically zero issue on R6. Of course really far from the speed of today's fastest RF glasses but still faster than current RF 85/2. Which is very impressive considering 85/1.8 is 30+ years old design!!!

I would not choose this lens with any high pixel density camera if my aim would be A2+ size prints of shots taken at f/1.8.

With R6, prints up to A3 not even speaking smaller prints or TV / monitor viewing this lens is still bargain as hell for what it costs now used. As far as I know it did not suffer much from copy variations.

I was considering to exchange EF 85/1.8 for RF 85/2 but it somehow did not impress me, especially the STM focusing being noticeably slower in direct comparison. So I did return 85/2 and went for Sigma 85/1.4 Art which betters the RF as well as EF in everything (except RF's macro capabilities which are no interest to me).

Canon_Guy wrote:

tdbmd wrote:

On the new mirrorless bodies, the EF 85mm f1.8 is even better than on the DSLR, IMO.

Fully agree on that. I used this lens a lot on my 5D Mk III, then I had it on R6. Not only it focuses noticeably better on R6 (which is somehow understandable) but it is a bit sharper with better contrast. Like others EF glasses I have.

It is not a perfect lens. It is quite conditions dependent. It can make very nice sharp shots wide opened same as misty fringing festival. Mastering the lens' capabilities is rewarded with very good looking pictures.

Stopped down to f/2.2 it still delivers its creamy soft rich bokeh while improving sharpness and contrast to levels which are absolutely ok and non distracting even at 1:1 observation of R6 files. Also the way this lens renders the image is very apealing.

Focusing is basically zero issue on R6. Of course really far from the speed of today's fastest RF glasses but still faster than current RF 85/2. Which is very impressive considering 85/1.8 is 30+ years old design!!!

I would not choose this lens with any high pixel density camera if my aim would be A2+ size prints of shots taken at f/1.8.

With R6, prints up to A3 not even speaking smaller prints or TV / monitor viewing this lens is still bargain as hell for what it costs now used. As far as I know it did not suffer much from copy variations.

I was considering to exchange EF 85/1.8 for RF 85/2 but it somehow did not impress me, especially the STM focusing being noticeably slower in direct comparison. So I did return 85/2 and went for Sigma 85/1.4 Art which betters the RF as well as EF in everything (except RF's macro capabilities which are no interest to me).

Completely agree.  I initially only had crop bodies when I first bought the EF 85mm f1.8 so basically used it as a 135mm.  Used it alot for sports and generally from f2.2 to f2.8 but then when I purchased the R6, it became clear that it can be a really nice portrait lens in addition to indoor sports lens for much less money than some of the other 85mm offerings.

Considering it can soon celebrate it's 30th birthday, that's pretty neat.