Canon 85mm f/1.2L Lens

Canon 85/1.2L how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

1) Creamy smooth backgrounds that are real! Often referred to by photographers as Bokeh

Have you ever seen the "fake" blur that some photographers Photoshop into their pictures? It's extremely annoying, especially around the edges of the main subject, or when distant objects are less blurry than those that are close to the main subject.

True, there are some Photoshop Plugins (such as Alien Skin's Bokeh 2) that do a better job than others. But they still suffer at the edges of subjects.

For example, It's hard to gets masks perfect (especially if fuzzy edges like hair are involved). So plugins will tend to blur the subject "into the background", which can't simply be edited out and kept looking real without a tremendous amount of work.

I like it real. I prefer not to edit my photos a whole lot. So if it can be done in camera, so much the better!

Some examples from my recent pictures - pay close attention to the sharpness of the subject and the creamy smooth backgrounds:


(Click to view large)


(Click to view large)

2) Background lights turn into beautiful round orbs (again, Bokeh):


(Click to view large)

3) Hiding defects.

I tell people that my 85/1.2L can make anyone look beautiful. Why? Because secretly I know that when I'm shooting very shallow DOF the only thing that will be in focus is their eyes (sometimes only one eye) and all of the 'defects' that they've learned to hate just blur away. Who needs skin smoothing software when you can capture it correct in camera?

One such example:


(Click to view large)

4) Finally, the 85mm f/1.2L is easily the sharpest lens in my bag. So when I want perfect eyelashes or other details I pull out this lens.

In other words, I'm not obsessed with shooting wide open. Sometimes I want the sharpest image possible and this is my go-to lens for that sort of image.

Are there any downsides to this lens? Well yes...

1) Price. This lens is, by no means, a cheap lens.

2) Slow Focusing. I don't understand the physics of it, but I understand there are reasons why, even with Canon's USM focusing system, this lens still takes longer to focus than the vast majority of Canon's USM lenses. It means I don't use this lens out on the dance floor at a reception. I get that. But it doesn't stop me from using it for portraits.

So in spite of the slow focusing and high price, this is easily my most favorite lens. Ever.

It's not my most used lens. In part, because as a wedding photographer I am a slave to my zooms (I hate becoming a "moving distraction" at a wedding ceremony and so I prefer a good zoom lens over a prime for that reason). But when I want my very best pictures, this is the lens I pull out of the bag.

NOTE: All of the pictures featured here were taken with the Canon 5D Mark II Body. I need to point this out because the 5D II is a full frame camera which allows an 85mm lens to act like an 85mm lens (not 136mm as it would on a 1.6x crop-factor body). This is important to me because even at 85mm the lens feels a bit long at times. I like a long lens for portraits. But if it's too long, I feel like I have to stand too far away to interact with my subjects.

I love the details!

I love my camera. Why? Well, one reason is because of the excellent detail!

A friend of mine asked me to take a picture of an heirloom map.  I've already forgotten the details, but I believe it is about 60 years old. He wanted to ensure the map's survival by getting an electronic copy of it made.

At about 3.5' wide and 2.5' tall it is too big to make a copy using a copy machine.  So we hung the map vertically on a background stand and used my camera to take a picture of it.

Using my most favorite / sharpest lens, the Canon 85/1.2L lens, set at f/11 for a very sharp capture, mounted on my Canon 5D Mark II (a 21mp sensor), I took the following picture:



Due to its size, and because of the telephoto length of the lens (85mm), I had to stand back about 12 (TWELVE!) feet in order to take the picture.

Now THIS is what I really want to show you.  This is a tiny 1.7% crop of the above image.  Look at the detail:



I love it when I take pictures and see details in the eyes and eyelashes of the people in front of my camera.  Especially when it is a group portrait.  And this tiny crop just shows how much detail is being captured.

Anyway, I'm geeking out over the detail that is captured by my camera and had to share.

Canon 5D Mark II plus Canon 85mm 1.2L Lens

Wow... what a combo!

I picked up the Canon 85mm 1.2L lens the other day. Yesterday was my first real chance to use it. And I must say... what a combo the 5D Mark II with it's 21mp resolution and the Canon 85mm 1.2L lens make. Just take a look at this image and the 100% crop below it and draw your own conclusions:


(21mp image - reduced size to fit here)


(100% crop)

All I can say is ... I'm in love with this combo. I've never had or played with a sharper lens.

Playing with video on the Canon 5D Mark II

In playing with this new camera, one thing is for sure ... video is a game changer!

It's a whole new world. And it's not as simple as it sounds! Especially if you're playing with shallow DOF and needing to put the focus on a specific individual out of a group of people. I didn't discover the AF controls for the video until I read the manual. There are three modes: Quick AF, AF Live and AF Face Recognition.

Quick AF slaps the mirror back down, uses the normal AF focusing points to quickly focus and then brings the mirror back up. Obviously you can only do this at the start of a video otherwise Quick AF would interrupt the video.

AF Live lets you place a square anywhere on the image and it will use contrast detection to focus (it does this at the time you press the AF-ON button). You need to keep in mind that the camera may decide to totally de-focus and refocus the lens. Not necessarily a good thing if it's in the middle of an action sequence.

AF Face Recognition lets the camera try to pick out a face in the scene and focus on the face. The trouble you may run into here is if you have multiple faces in view, and one of them is more important than the others to keep in focus. The camera may not pick the face you want. It also may move back and forth between faces on its own.

Manual focusing is always active -- assuming you have a lens that lets you focus while AF is engaged (all of my Canon lenses let me do this). The trouble is, if I hold the camera far enough away so I can see the LCD to determine what is in focus, then I'm more likely to bounce the camera around while I'm recording.

Like I said ... video is going to be a challenge. And shallow DOF only makes it more so.

Here is a video from yesterday's birthday party where I was using AF Face Recognition to focus the camera.


Click here for a high resolution version of the video.

New Camera: Canon 5D Mark II with Canon 24-105 f/4.0 L USM lens

So I picked up a brand new camera yesterday. This camera is SO new there are probably only 20 of them in the state of Utah at this point in time. Canon unleashed this new 21mp beauty on the world yesterday and the good folks at Pictureline contacted me first thing in the morning letting me know that they already had one in stock. Woot! :)

This new camera has several unique features:
1) It is a full frame camera (meaning the sensor is the same size as the film used on 35mm SLR)
2) The sensor has 21mp resolution - that's 3744x5616 pixels!
3) It is even capable of shooting full resolution 1080p HD video (I believe that is 1920x1080 pixels at 30 frames per second).

As I had to work during the day, and had Pictage User Group meeting at night, I really didn't get much of a chance to play with the camera yesterday. I'm hoping to remedy that over the 4-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend!

In the mean time, here are a few of my first images. This image was shot this morning on my way in to work:

Click for full resolution

Straight out of camera jpeg:
Click for full resolution

Or here is a 100% crop of the image to show the detail:


Here is a straight out of camera ISO 6400 shot:
Click for full resolution

And here is a video shot in room light with the camera last night.

Click here for full resolution video (and click the monitor button on bottom right for full screen)

(note: at the end of the video I purposely defocused the lens to see what it would look like)

I haven't decided yet how (or if) video will make its way into my workflow. But it is interesting to see such high resolution video and even more so from an DSLR!

Look for more posts in the future as I play around with the camera some more.