Talk to me: Canon 85 1.8 for weddings

Thinking about buying a Canon 85 1.8 for weddings only, as a backup to my 70-200 2.8 II.

I don't have any real interest in the 85 1.2 due to the price and slow focus. I use to own the 135L too, but sold it has is was too hard to hand hold in churches.

Biggest points I care about are fast (and accurate) focus and good micro contrast.

Any reason I shouldn't buy it?

Heya,

Great lens for $300 used. Do it.

I have two fast autofocus primes. The EF 85 F1.8 (lighting fast, small, sharp, F1.8). And the EF 200 F2.8L (lighting fast, light weight for 200 F2.8, black, sharp wide open, F2.8). Inexpensive. I paid more for my 85! I caught my 200 on a slick deal.

I use my 85 F1.4 more than my 85 F1.8, but I use that 85 F1.8 for things where I want focus speed. I'm pretty fast with my 85 F1.4 (manual focus), but the 85 F1.8's speed is so fast that sometimes it's just the right tool. Like when I shoot kids soccer, I love that lens, it keeps up with running kids. So it should be fast enough for a slow wedding.

The other beauty is, the wider the aperture, the more light it can grab for autofocus purposes, even if you're stopping down to F4...

Very best,

Only real issue could be CA especially if you shoot the bride outdoors. Correctable though and the rest of the lens's positives IMO severely outweigh that. It's a fantastic lens and one I still keep because of it's versatility and lightning fast AF.

It's a great lens, especially for the price. I'd also consider the 100/2. If it weren't for the price difference I'd have ended up with the 100/2 over my Rokinon 85mm probably.

ZachOly wrote in post #17171840
Thinking about buying a Canon 85 1.8 for weddings only, as a backup to my 70-200 2.8 II.

I don't have any real interest in the 85 1.2 due to the price and slow focus. I use to own the 135L too, but sold it has is was too hard to hand hold in churches.

Biggest points I care about are fast (and accurate) focus and good micro contrast.

Any reason I shouldn't buy it?

One lens I wouldn't ever want to be without if I was photographing people or pets.

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IMAGE LINK: http://s1110.photobuck​et.com …0181_zps327d628​c.jpg.html

EverydayGetaway wrote in post #17171976
It's a great lens, especially for the price. I'd also consider the 100/2. If it weren't for the price difference I'd have ended up with the 100/2 over my Rokinon 85mm probably.

I had the 85 1.8 (CA) and 135L ($$). I sold them both and got the 100 f/2. I'm happy. I do wish the 100 f/2 were IS, but I'm not willing to pay $1000 for it.

The only thing I would warn you is to really watch your DOF if you get the lens. It is a great lens, but when I shot a wedding this weekend, I noticed that with my 70-200 II, even when not wide oepn (down to f3.5 to f4), I still had cases where there were more than a couple of people and some fell outside the DOF. I am sure I was past 85mm though, which would reduce the DOF. I would expect the 85 1.8 would be used at f1.8 to f2.8 in a very controlled manner for individual subjects.

I use this lens for weddings on my 2nd body (70D). My main camera is 5DIII + 24-70 2.8 II and the 70D + 85 1.8 compliments it nicely. AF is fast, DoF is thin, so like TeamSpeed said you have to be cautious regarding what you shoot with the 85. It works great for separating one person or maybe a couple (if they are both on the focal plane) from the crowd and the background. I like working with it.
But as mentioned, CA is a moderate problem under certain conditions. Most of the time it's an easy fix, but sometimes the thickness of the purple lining can cause problems (but maybe 1% of the time.)

I just picked up a nice shape 5Dc and will try that with my 70-200 2.8 OS Sigma lens as an experiment during my next indoor event and compare the results to my 70D + 85 1.8 combo.

I don't understand!
In your signature I can see you have three lenses that come close to the 85mm F/1.8, beeing the 50, the 24-70 and 70-200mm.
For me the prime 85mm is great for certain phases in a marriage but its my thought that it will make your choises even harder "what when to use".
Sure the 85mm is magical in terms of bokeh but so are the three lenses that you have now.
In case you have money to burn I would suggest spending it on a good strobe (with a remote trigger) which I find very useful during weddings.
Good luck!
Greetings, Alain

I agree, I would use the 50 1.4 or 24-70 II
I sold the 85 1.8 twice for the CA, yes the purples are correctable but it's not so nice having to correct every picture with bright lights, if the purple is in the faces you can't correct it anymore as you lose too much detail, stopping down is better in this case, but you buy a 1.8 to use it as much as possible wide open.

Lenty007 wrote in post #17172455
I don't understand!
In your signature I can see you have three lenses that come close to the 85mm F/1.8, beeing the 50, the 24-70 and 70-200mm.
For me the prime 85mm is great for certain phases in a marriage but its my thought that it will make your choises even harder "what when to use".
Sure the 85mm is magical in terms of bokeh but so are the three lenses that you have now.
In case you have money to burn I would suggest spending it on a good strobe (with a remote trigger) which I find very useful during weddings.
Good luck!
Greetings, Alain

Here was a flop of a photo because I thought I had enough DOF, and the camera latched onto the flowers instead of the couple. This edit was the only thing I could do really to try to salvage the shot. I would expect 85 at 1.8 would yield alot of these if the scenes are dynamic enough. This is one of the reasons I chuckle a bit when people talk about how much more DOF control you have with a FF, sure it is handy in very controlled artistic situations, but it can be a curse if not used correctly.

But why not focus on the people? Surely you're choosing your focus point yourself 99.9% of the time.

jnadz wrote in post #17173739
But why not focus on the people? Surely you're choosing your focus point yourself 99.9% of the time.

Yes, I did have a focus point selected, but it still focused on the flowers. That is also a crop from a larger frame, so the point I had selected might have straddled material. Out of of roughly 500 pics, about 20 were OOF, so I figured that wasn't so bad.

That's the worst purple fringing I ever saw.

Using Tv and Center-spot AF, I've never had any problem catching action pics in-focus. Any lack of focus has always been my own inaccuracy in pointing that spot.