If you can only afford one L prime- which one do you choose?

koenkooi

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now, that is a one L lens I cannot afford. hm.. will have to have a convo with my manager on Monday around lunch time. :)

A famous, now deceased papparazo switched to Canon just for this lens and he added a review on the page where he bought it, along the lines of "Expensive, but pays for itself, combined with a 2x extender, there's no place celebreties can hide with this."
That review sadly didn't survive the website makeover :(
 
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Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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I second that at once.

I love/need a portrait lens. the 100L gives me macro as well.
f stop and bokeh are limited with this lens.
But it is so versatile that I'd take it any time.

I've never been a fan of using macro lenses for portraiture. All of that flat field correction usually kills the out of focus areas and optimization to be best at close focusing distances often sacrifices some optical performance at typical portrait distances.
 
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Maximilian

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I've never been a fan of using macro lenses for portraiture.
Of course there is always an optimized tool for a dedicated work.

But that was not the question of this thread. And sometimes life is about compromises.
And if you can get 80% of one job (portrait, IMO) and 100% (macro) of the other with 50% of the price than that is a great compromise.
And it seems that I am not alone with my opinion and decission here.

But if you have an EF 85L 1.2 II or 1.4 IS to give away I'll gladly send you my address ;)
 
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Michael Clark

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Of course there is always an optimized tool for a dedicated work.

But that was not the question of this thread. And sometimes life is about compromises.
And if you can get 80% of one job (portrait, IMO) and 100% (macro) of the other with 50% of the price than that is a great compromise.
And it seems that I am not alone with my opinion and decission here.

But if you have an EF 85L 1.2 II or 1.4 IS to give away I'll gladly send you my address ;)

Didn't your mother ever ask you, "If all of your friends run off the edge of a cliff, are you going to follow them?"

The EF 85mm f/1.8, the EF 100mm f/2, and even the EF 135mm f/2 can all be had for much less than an EF 85mm f/1.2 L II or EF 85mm f/1.4 L IS (which in my opinion is a bit too "corrected" for field curvature to make it a great portrait lens - but that's what sells lenses these days: how sharp they can make the corners of a flat test chart shot at relatively close distance).

I will concede that the EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro (either "L" or non) might be a better portrait lens in some use cases than the 85/1.8 and its larger cousin, the 100/2. But it can't hold a candle to the nearly three decades old 135/2.
 
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Maximilian

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Didn't your mother ever ask you, "If all of your friends run off the edge of a cliff, are you going to follow them?"
Didn‘t your mother ever teach you about a respectful conversation?
Surely Not, from what I read here :rolleyes:

The EF 85mm f/1.8, the EF 100mm f/2, and even the EF 135mm f/2 can all be had ...
I own the 85/1.8 and the macro, so do you, too?
And from my experience I always got better portraits from the macro.
But surely this was only from my lack of skills.

And for the 135, which surely is also an excellent lens, but again a real specialist.
Try to use it indoors where you have not enough space between you and subject.

So put your own choice here but also accept the one of others, especially if they choose versality over specialists that work at only one point.

Otherwise you show yourself as specialist as well. As one in intolerance.


Edit, by the way:
Could we now go back on track?
This is NOT the "What's your favorite portrait lens" thread (and I stated that there are some better out there)
but the "If you can only afford one L prime...".
 
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Michael Clark

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Didn‘t your mother ever teach you about a respectful conversation?
Surely Not, from what I read here :rolleyes:

My apologies if you are not from a part of the world where we ask this, half joking, of each other any time one appeals to "everyone else is doing it too."
 
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Maximilian

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My apologies if you are not from a part of the world where we ask this, half joking, of each other any time one appeals to "everyone else is doing it too."
Thanks for your apologies and accepted.

For clarification:
Tor me this was simply misplaced here and therefore offensive in this case. But even with emoticons it is difficult to read between the lines.
Maybe I got this wrong because I never saw myself as one of those "lemmings" but more often as one that stands to his individual opinion, even if it is not a common one.
 
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Del Paso

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Thanks for your apologies and accepted.

For clarification:
Tor me this was simply misplaced here and therefore offensive in this case. But even with emoticons it is difficult to read between the lines.
Maybe I got this wrong because I never saw myself as one of those "lemmings" but more often as one that stands to his individual opinion, even if it is not a common one.

Your posts never did sound like a lemming's!:)
 
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