Amazing Naturally-lit Photos!

Canon 85mm Medium Telephoto Cameras

This lens has been my main lens since April 1996 (receipt still in my bag!) and is always on my camera. I'll never forget the first roll with this lens after being used to the normal small zooms---the colors, crispness, and limited depth-of-field amazed me. They still do. At that time I was using an Elan and a 28-80 4.5-5.6 usm. I since had moved to an Elan IIE, then an A2E, then a 1N-RS (still have) and finally a Canon 30D digital, purchased last month. The 85mm f1.8 usm has remained through all of these, being my main lens for all this time. Its quality has not diminished one bit.

The focusing ring is a huge plus---you can fine tune at any time once the camera has selected a focus. This is very handy during portraits when you really want to have the eyes in focus at the moment the shutter is pressed.

The huge points to this lens are color saturation, crispness, fine-focus ability, and the extremely small depth-of-field obtainable through the 1.8 aperture. Incredible lens in every aspect. Oh, and from the front the glass and open aperture is massive looking, making those 4-5.6 zooms look the size of pupils in the eyes of the person whose portrait your taking. I kid you not, you won't believe the look of this thing from the front. The rear glass is huge too, allowing for the 1.8.

A couple more thoughts---I have the 200mm f2.8L lens, which is another fantastic lens. It has the pro glass, and the images I get with the 85mm f1.8 actually rival those made with the 200mm L lens. It is very hard to discern a difference. I cannot say that about the 28-105 3.5-4.5 or the 75-300usm zooms in my collection. Those are zooms and not a prime, which is the big reason, but still, image quality differences are huge. It is one of my main hang-ups about using one of my zooms----when I do and after I look at the images, I always know that they could have been crisper, with more pop and pizazz if I had only used the 85 or 200. That is why I really like to stick with the primes.

For the future, I am planning on purchasing a zoom L lens or two, most notably the 24-70 f2.8L, and the 17-40 f4L. Then I will be able to get the quality of images I am used to with my prime lenses. Good luck with whatever you decide. If you go the route of the 85mm f1.8, you won't regret it. I've loved my since 1996!

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