pwp said:
<•••>
Based on the 85L 's reputation, I bought it as a primary portrait lens. While I was somewhat aware of the slow AF, nothing prepared me for how slow it really was. My loss rate in portrait shoots regardless of aperture made it an epic fail for my business. The 70-200 f/2.8isII is far and away my most used portrait lens, with a very high keeper rate and happy clients.
In hindsight I may have been better off with the lens you bought, the EF 85 f/1.8. It has a vastly different look to the 85L, but at least it has viable AF.
-pw
I have this lens for many years, since it was released and this is one of my lenses that I enjoy most of all.
Never ever had any issues with AF precision with my previous 1Ds m3 and then with current 1Dx.
More than 90% of shots are perfectly sharp. Almost never had any shot that is not sharp.
Maybe there are some issues with other cameras but for 1Ds M3 and 1Dx this lens was always the perfect match. And now also on Sony a7S this is just so good.
I think that EF85 f/1.2 requires some understanding from the user to get desired results.
First of all DOF at 1.2 is so thin so that just slight movement of the model or photographer after getting focus (half button press) and shutter release would result in the focus shift and focus will be at the wrong point.
The other thing is using proper focus point selection and focus mode selection.
So when using EF85 L/1.2 m2 with 1Dx when shooting at f1.2 I mostly use continious shoting mode with continious AF mode with focus priority for the first and next shots. Focusing and then pressing release button to get at least 3 shots. Then in LR i can select the most sharp image, though most frequently they are all more or less the same. Trick here is that continious AF compensates for slight focusing distance changes when making the shot and continious shooting mode would allow to get best image from the sequence.
Maybe this is not very suitable for non 1D bodies which do not have so avanced AF as 1Dx and battery power is lower resulting in slower AF.
With EF85 F/1.2 m2 and 1DX I also had no issues with objects moving not very fast when using method described above.
And I also enjoy this lens very much on Sony A7S for low light capabilities of this combo.
Focusing manually at f1.2 using focus peaking on A7S is so easy and much more enjoyable than on 1Dx as I can focus perfectly at almost full darkness without using focus assist light.
With 85F/1.2 on A7S I just do manually prefocus quickly and then just shift my body slightly back or forward to get required part of the object to be most sharp. It is just fun to use 85 f1.2 on A7S.
