Canon 85mm f/1.2L review

I recently got the chance to play with the Canon 85mm f/1.2L lens. Some say it's the best portrait lens for Canon DSLRs, some say it sucks in more light than the black hole. So i got to try it out, albeit on my cropped 550D.

The 85L makes a pea out of the 550D (size-wise)

It is a heft of a lens, weighing in at a wrist-snapping 1kg. The sheer weight made a feather out of my 550D body, and after holding it for an hour, you could feel the strain in the wrist. Soon enough, you'll be forced to doing wrist gymnastics, or just change to another lens.

Why is it so heavy? Just take a look at the sheer amount of glass that accommodates the massive f/1.2 aperture. The moment I got hold of the lens, I took off the front and rear caps and this is what I saw:



Immediately I could hear the tune of Lonely Island's Jizz In My Pants going off my iPhone. I almost did. The clarity and size of the glass inside makes you forget about its wrist-snapping weight and begs you to mount it on to see how well it shoots. No pun(s) intended.

Lazing around in Chinatown

On the 550D, the field of view is equivalent to 135mm on a full-frame camera, due to the 1.6x crop. Thanks to its reach, I could take some interesting "paparazzi" portraits of people without getting in their face. In day conditions, focusing was good enough, not snappy though. The USM was always labouring hard to shift the massive glass around to focus.

The focus window

Focusing from minimum focus distance of 1m to infinity took slightly more than 1 second. Certainly not the fastest one around.

When shot at the widest f/1.2, the background bokeh is creamy and good enough to eliminate distractions in the background. It also allows for quick shutter speeds, so you can freeze the action. (or subject in the act)

Smoking life away

Did I mention the bokeh is creamier than your regular oven-baked macaroni and cheese.






The 85L performs great in the day, but how does it do at night?
I was at Esplanade on Friday night and that was the time and place where people go to unwind, after a hard day at work. Great location to snap more "paparazzi" shots.

It's been a long day at the office.

She did not have to worry about work

The lens had difficulty auto-focusing quickly at night, especially with moving subjects. The difference in focusing performance at night compared to in the day is as distinct as, well, night and day. Many a times you'll experience the focus mechanism go from close to infinity and back, before dumping question marks all over you. When you do eventually get it right, the moment's gone, subject's gone.

For still subjects though, chance of accurate focus is slightly higher. And when you do, you will be duly rewarded with wonderful bokehlicious pictures.

Just about the only still subject I could find below the Helix Bridge

My photo-khaki, Benjamin, working on his Olympus PEN E-PL2.

Some flower. Or sunflower?

Moving from outdoors to indoors. This lens performs well enough indoors, provided you have room all around you, not forgetting that its minimum focus distance is 1m. Coincidentally, I had my baby cousin to be my innocent little model.

Innocence personified.

Isn't she cute.

Once again, autofocus is quick and snappy due to the amount of light in the living room. And it's such a wonderful lens to use for portraits, once you get the focus spot on.


The Canon 85mm f/1.2 is a sensational lens, the monster aperture lets in so much more light than my regular kit lens. And as a portrait lens, it performs superbly, rendering anything other than the subject in focus blurrer than the sotong we eat. Not to mention the excellent build-quality of this grenade. However, the weight of it will not make good friends with wrists and arms when taking hand-held shots, unless there's a sturdy tripod willing to bear the load. The USM (Ultra-Sonic Motor) mechanism contradicts itself here, with slow focus speeds, worse at night. Still, it is a incredible lens for what it can do.

The Canon 85 f/1.2L. What a lens.