The king of portrait lenses

With a maximum aperture of f/1.4, you'd expect to see some extreme bokeh with a lens like this. Happily the Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM Lens doesn’t disappoint. Generally speaking, bokeh is described in subject terms, such as creamy, smooth and so on. With the Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM Lens, the bokeh is extremely smooth, producing a very pleasing shallow depth of field effects.

Here is a Christmas photo session that i did at the end of last  year with my daughter- Fotografii copii

Thanks for sharing your experience and for the beautiful pictures!Would you care posting some full-res examples?

Multe salutari si lumina buna!

Imagine calling around to professional photographers inquiring about having portraits taken and asking whether they have an EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM, rejecting any that say they don't.

A couple of my favorite portrait photographers shoot everything at f8-f16 (yes, with 35mm cameras). They make sure everything in the background relates to the person in the photo (they often shoot in their work environments) and they use lights instead of DOF to separate them from the background.

But it's way easier and quicker to just blur everything in the background.

Scott Larson wrote:

A couple of my favorite portrait photographers shoot everything at f8-f16 (yes, with 35mm cameras). They make sure everything in the background relates to the person in the photo (they often shoot in their work environments) and they use lights instead of DOF to separate them from the background.

But it's way easier and quicker to just blur everything in the background.

Deep focus photography is very underrated,  especially among people just starting out

Dave wrote:

Imagine calling around to professional photographers inquiring about having portraits taken and asking whether they have an EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM, rejecting any that say they don't.

I don't get the joke?

Scott Larson wrote:

A couple of my favorite portrait photographers shoot everything at f8-f16 (yes, with 35mm cameras). They make sure everything in the background relates to the person in the photo (they often shoot in their work environments) and they use lights instead of DOF to separate them from the background.

But it's way easier and quicker to just blur everything in the background.

This is absolutely the best way to do portraiture. The technique itself is hundreds of years old in the sense that this is how the great painters used light and composition for their work.

My view is that you need at least two feet of sharper focus field for good portraiture with the lit background four feet at least behind that (in a controlled environment -be that a studio or outdoor. (we have planted areas that we have deliberately cultivated to allow this).

For a fine formal portraiture sitting, I find that the MF lenses are better than anything I have used in the ff SLR world - especially if it is to be a big print or for some matter of lasting record.