85 RF STM in

[Kiton]

The RF 85mm stm arrived today. Only some half hearten tests so far, but seems very good. Sharp and fast auto focus, but why does Canon always find a way to screw something up or to piss off the buyer? 1) at 850 dollars CDN, the lens hood is an option.

I get it for a 200 lens, but at 850, throw the $#@^ hood in Canon!

2)
I totally disagree with the focus limiting choices.
I think anyone who would buy this lens as a street lens would like to have something in the area of 3 feet to infinity as a walk around focus limiting choice, but it is almost all (.5 m to inf) or nothing.

I have a portrait to shoot tomorrow and will see how it does in the field with off camera flash in a single shoot through.

 

[koenkooi]

[..]
I totally disagree with the focus limiting choices.
I think anyone who would buy this lens as a street lens would like to have something in the area of 3 feet to infinity as a walk around focus limiting choice, but it is almost all (.5 m to inf) or nothing. [..]

Judging from the amount it sticks out, the 0.3 - 0.5m range is half of the focus throw, so it cuts the time it needs to focus from near to far in half. With my EF85mm I run into issues when trying to take a full face portrait of my kids, the 85cm MFD is just slightly to far. 3ft would be 91cm. To get the full face of my 2yo in frame I have to put it on the 0.7m mark on the EVF distance scale. So, for me, the range works out well enough.

Having said that, DPReview TV did a short bit about software focus limiters a few weeks ago, I think Fuji allows you to set a focus range in the menu, so you can set it to 1.0-2.0m if you want to do headshots in a forest.

 

[Maximilian]

Hi Kiton!

Congrats to your acquisition and thanks for sharing your first impressions.

1) at 850 dollars CDN, the lens hood is an option. ...

Fully understand, fully agree, esp. when you think about the costs of making a plastics injection molding part, even if it is high precission and internally flocked.
But it was, is and will be Canon politics to do so with all non-L lenses. Only advice: relax and comply, try to find a good third party hood or change brand.

2) I totally disagree with the focus limiting choices.

AFAI understand this is the typical limiting for a macro lens.
I understand your preferences, but as someone who likes the macro option of such a lens I am happy that they gave a non-L lens a three position switch and not only two (full and full w/o macro, see EF100 macro).

I have a portrait to shoot tomorrow and will see how it does in the field with off camera flash in a single shoot through.

Please share your experiences about IQ and bokeh. Thanks in advance.

 

[Kiton]

Judging from the amount it sticks out, the 0.3 - 0.5m range is half of the focus throw, so it cuts the time it needs to focus from near to far in half. With my EF85mm I run into issues when trying to take a full face portrait of my kids, the 85cm MFD is just slightly to far. 3ft would be 91cm. To get the full face of my 2yo in frame I have to put it on the 0.7m mark on the EVF distance scale. So, for me, the range works out well enough.

Having said that, DPReview TV did a short bit about software focus limiters a few weeks ago, I think Fuji allows you to set a focus range in the menu, so you can set it to 1.0-2.0m if you want to do headshots in a forest.

I have the 100 macro, and love it, which I have almost always used on the 5d mk 4. The 1d X mk 2 bodies really only come out for sports and big news and protests etc.
You are right, the 85 has the same limiters as the 100. I never really loved them on the 100 and had hoped that Canon would see this as a great cross over lens, not just a pure macro lens. In the street 3 or 4 feet would be great for most shooting and hopefully make the focus faster than the 100. For closer, just toggle it over but for most street stuff it would be fine.

But shooting today, I had 3 assignments, the 85 STM on the R5 did very very well, it is a mile (or several miles) better than the 100 on the 5d 4.
I kept it at .5 to infinity and it was fine. So I guess I should take a big part of that complaint back. It never did that back and forth searching which the 100 has done and frustrated the shit out of me.

I stumbled on two painters feeding the birds during their lunch break in a park downtown. I was walking around with a 16-35 EF on the R5 and the 85 in my pocket. This is a huge crop, every time I got too close, the birds flew away. If I stayed still they would come back after circling the park a few times. I wish I had the 70-200 with me, but I am happy, the 85 did very well, even when enlarged by a lot.

I had to reduce the file size to meet the CR server requirements.

 

[Kiton]

Hi Kiton!

Congrats to your acquisition and thanks for sharing your first impressions.


Fully understand, fully agree, esp. when you think about the costs of making a plastics injection molding part, even if it is high precission and internally flocked.
But it was, is and will be Canon politics to do so with all non-L lenses. Only advice: relax and comply, try to find a good third party hood or change brand.

AFAI understand this is the typical limiting for a macro lens.
I understand your preferences, but as someone who likes the macro option of such a lens I am happy that they gave a non-L lens a three position switch and not only two (full and full w/o macro, see EF100 macro).

Please share your experiences about IQ and bokeh. Thanks in advance.

It was 2 degrees C here today, so the entire shoot did not last long, but I am very happy with I got with the 85mm today.
I can't post the portatit picture until after the newspaper publishes it, but I will try to get a few images up in the coming days.
I was really happy with the way the lens focused today. I was expecting much more searching. It never searched once. We will see in the coming days.
If I had my choice, I would have only a 28 and an 85, both f2, for the vast majority of my assignments, major news and sports aside.

 

[Maximilian]

I have the 100 macro, and love it, ...

L or non-L? I was refering to the non-L with only 2 limiter positions, which I once had.
I now have the 100L and as I use it quite often for macro I can say that for that purpose the 3 pos limiter suits 100% for me.

I stumbled on two painters feeding the birds during their lunch break in a park downtown.

Great sharpnes and contrast on the painters face. Seem to be a really good lens.
For the rest (bokeh, corner, etc.) this situation didn't work. But thank you for sharing.

I can't post the portatit picture until after the newspaper publishes it, but I will try to get a few images up in the coming days.
I was really happy ...

Fully understand. But thank you for sharing you experience.
Sounds promissing.
If I get into R/RF the 35 and 85 STM wil be my first lenses

 

[Kiton]

I had to shoot some portraits and a video interview with NHL hockey legend Guy Carbonneau today. The 85 was really bad for running B Roll! The focus was too slow and drifted. The only upside was if you want the out of focus to sharp slowww transition, it does it better than i can do by hand!

For the stills and the interview it was great.
But it did not take long to change to the RF 24-105 for walking around the film set shooting B Roll.
It will not be a “go to lens” for video on the fly indoors.

 

[drmikeinpdx]

Can one of you RF 85 owners comment on the autofocus noise? It's my one complaint about the RF 35 STM.

There is also an odd review on the Adorama site saying that the autofocus speed is reduced during video shooting. Is that true?

Thanks!

 

[koenkooi]

Can one of you RF 85 owners comment on the autofocus noise? It's my one complaint about the RF 35 STM.

There is also an odd review on the Adorama site saying that the autofocus speed is reduced during video shooting. Is that true?

Thanks!

It's the standard noisy STM sound, but with a larger resonance chamber And yes, AF gets glacial during video, it makes focus pulls looks really nice, but it can't keep up with my kids. The RF50 STM suffers from the same issues.

But when my kids aren't running around but are fairly stationary, the IS+IBIS when using the RF85 STM on my R5 removes pretty much all my shaking and jittering which makes the video looks really good.

 

[Chris.Chapterten]

Great to hear you are happy with the lens. I have the RF 85 f1.2 (used for wider fashion images) and then also picked up the RF 85 f2 (for close up beauty photography). Comparing the two, the f2 lens actually holds it’s own very easily! More than good enough for professional use. CA and sharpness really puts my old EF 85 f1.8 and EF 85 1.4L to shame.

One thing I love about the RF 85 f2 is the AF accuracy. Really amazed! It is a lot better than the RF 35mm 1.8 (a lens I had to sell because my copy had far too much focus shift for my liking).

enjoy it!