 This is a remarkable lens and arguably the best portrait lens made. The 85 Mark II L is incredibly sharp even wide open, and the wide aperture blurs the out-of-focus background beautifully. The depth of field wide open is so narrow that you must often stop down to f/1.4 to get the subject’s entire face into focus. With the aperture wide open, it’s possible to shoot in near darkness or candlelight. This is a hefty piece of glass, almost as wide as it is long (sometimes called “the magic cannonball”). It’s focus speed is most charitably described as “deliberate”, i.e. it is really not suited for fast action or sports shooting. Like all very wide-aperture lenses, it will certainly need a bit of autofocus microadjustment to give the best images on your camera. Without that, these lenses will almost certainly back of front focus a bit on your body wide open. Roger’s take: Be warned: this lens is hugely addictive. Strong photographers have wept standing in line at the post office to return it. Please don’t let your tears fall on the return label’s bar code; it slows down return shipping when the scanner can’t read it. It’s amazing. It’s also slow to autofocus. This is a portrait lens and a still life lens but NOT a sports lens. You want the 85 f/1.8 for action shots. Please note: This lens focus system is completely electronic, meaning there are no mechanical elements. The focus ring on this lens will rotate freely without adjusting focus unless the lens is mounted to a Canon SLR camera that is turned on. Therefore, it is not compatible with the Letus system or other adapters and trying to “pull focus” for video work is not recommended. Why is it not recommended? Because it isn’t going to work. This is an f/1.2 aperture lens. It will almost certainly require autofocus microadjustment on your camera to give you sharp images wide open. If your camera does not have that feature, or you are not comfortable using it, please don’t rent this lens. If you are not used to working with wide-aperture lenses, please read this link before deciding if this is a good choice for you. Specs:
Links:MTF Chart:
Thick lines: 10 lines/mm; thin lines: 30 lines/mm. The darker black lines represent the MTF characteristics at maximum aperture; the blue lines at f/8. The solid lines trace the radical S (sagittal) curve, while the broken lines trace the tangential M (meridional) curve. If you are bored and don’t understand MTF charts, you can read about them HERE Lens Diagram:
PricingLensRentals.com offers rentals of every length between 4 and 90 days. Some common selections are:
The shopping cart will automatically update the quoted price as you adjust the length of your rental. LensRentals also offers an optional damage waiver on this product, limiting your expense should it get damaged while in your possession.
ShippingLensRentals.com ships via UPS 2-day service, unless your rental requires faster shipping. Return shipping is included in the shipping price, and we include a prepaid return label with your order—all you need to do is bring it to a UPS drop-off location when your rental is complete. The shopping cart can automatically quote shipping, even for multi-item and oversize orders. Shipping multiple items together offers significant savings over shipping them individually. |
