5D MKII + 85L1.2II .. worst for sport ?

Not exactly ..

To tell the truth, I will have a world quadbike race on 21/22 of august in Pont de Vaux, and till now, 135L2.0 (my favorit gear) was a bit too slow and too long for a 580EXII for night shots. So I used to take a 24L1.4II, but I need to be really too near the track which is not really safe ..
So I wanted last week end to give a try to my 85L1.2II mounted on a 5DMKII and I kept a 300L2.8 mounted on a 50D.

But after all, I got good result when I pre focused early enough in
AI focus mode...

IMAGE LINK: http://newworld666.smu​gmug.com …359/956871006_v​YNUd-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …372/955542620_L​qVUZ-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …284/955542144_F​XBmt-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …303/955547270_b​bjRN-O.jpg

some other sample .. just like a proof of concept ..
For agility dog show ..

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …red/930777798_a​MzaB-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …red/930777460_S​q78f-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …red/930778387_F​VNEu-O.jpg

IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING! HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …2-2/980689799_K9H7b-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …815/980700926_L​N2eM-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …679/980699126_y​oNBN-O.jpg

newworld666 wrote in post #11254595

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …679/980699126_y​oNBN-O.jpg

a bit off topic, but i just had to say that i really like this photo. awesome work.

Wow! Love the dog agility/flyball ones! And I thought I was getting some good agility shots off with my 70-200 and 7D... now I want an 85L II

I'm going to throw my 85 on the 7D this weekend and give it a shot see what I can muster up at the track. It doesnt look like the top shots you've used a low aperture. Was it F8 or below ? Nice shots btw.

It's certainly possible. I paired my 85L with my old XTi and left a basketball game with a few keepers. I'm going to pair my 85 with the 1DII one of these days and take a shot at basketball. Should be fun!

Great to see. But I think that the keeperrate is much higher with another lens.

damn - that first dog photo is SHARP! almost looks like a 3d photo!!! it just pops out!

JelleVerherstraeten wrote in post #11254942
Great to see. But I think that the keeperrate is much higher with another lens.

Not really ... when I have a QuadBike race job, I use usually
-> daytime 5DMKII+300L/135L and 50D+24L/85L
-> evening/nights or indoor 5DMKII+85L+580EX and 50+24L+430EX

I would say the highest keepers are with 300L -> AF is instant and tracking is perfect. All other lenses are more or less similar, as tracking is very good and AF is a bit slow. But best pictures that pilots prefer are definitely 300L and 85L ...

For dog show, the hall was very dark with a very difficult light (mixture of daylight and artificial) .. but dog pictures were all at F1.2. DOF is really sufficient and AF very good for the situation. I got much better results with 85L than with 300L. AT F2.8 it was really impossible to get a decent ISO.
We had a thread about this point
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=900836

Anyway, I would recommend to train before using 85L'AF for a job. But, once you understood how 85L'AF is working, then keeper's rate is really more than decent, and chance to get nice pictures very HIGH ...

In real life, DOF of 85L is really not an issue for sport, you can't be very near ..and even in the nearest case DOF is really not a problem

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …962/984127730_v​9B6N-O.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://photos.corbi.eu …9-2/989508774_e6vtE-O.jpg

I remember having the 85mm 1.2 ii....i hated trying to get a shot of my daughter running around the living room with just ambient window light. when it came time for me to reset my camera gear i thought about the 85mm again.. then i remember the lens hunting so slowly...zzzz...zzz...​zzzzzzzz.... yeah.. that was annoying from an almost $5000 lens/camera combo....so decided the 100mm would fit me better.

many times when you shoot at 1.2.. you end up with one eye in focus.. so its really not usefull in that way for me, plus the focus ring is so light that manual focus is hard. So i decided that i could focus with the zeiss lenses much easier and shoot at 2.0.. which would give me the whole face or head in focus and give me that great zeiss look.

I know the zeiss isnt for everyone.. but neither is the 85mm 1.2 ii...

im glad you can use it for sport.. but im thinking a 70-200 2.8 IS ii would be much more suited for sports for somewhere around the same price.

just my .2c.. i could be wrong

The 85L is too slow in attaining focus to work well in team sports. While it may be able to track a single athlete acceptably once it gets there, it cannot jump from one subject to another in a reasonable amount of time.

This would make a job like shooting a volleyball team painful as you would have to pick one hitter or backline player per volley and stick with her hoping she gets the ball each time. So while the 85L can shoot sports, there are a lot of much better choices.

I agree that to jump from one subject to another one, it won't suit. Actually I more concerned with motor sports and dog shows. But, for my uses, F2.8 is definitely too slow (I was disappointed with my 300L2.8 and even 135L2.0 for night shots or even indoor shots in dark halls like for dog agility shows. With my 5DMKII, the noise gap between 3200iso and 6400iso is really too huge to get reasonable results.
A lot of people don't mind to get ghosts feet, hands or hair so they are satisfy with F2.8, I am not, I need a highest speed as possible around 1/800.

But I agree that 80% of the usage in daytime, I get better results with a 300L2.8 (I imagine easily that a 400L2.8 would be even better). 85L1.2 is definitely interesting in low light situation when you have time toneed track a subject and not when you jump from one to the other one.

Are you prefocussing in these dog examples? Would love to see a series of shots in focus. If you take 10 shots and post one shot in focus it doesn't tell what happened to rest of them. Also bigger the subject much easier to focus.

bobbyz wrote in post #11271035
Are you prefocussing in these dog examples? Would love to see a series of shots in focus. If you take 10 shots and post one shot in focus it doesn't tell what happened to rest of them. Also bigger the subject much easier to focus.

Yes, I am mostly pre-focusing ..
here is a complete dog race, just to show the tracking capability. (I resized to FullHD size, click on "I" to get exif and filename) .. one picture seems to be missing in the sequence I can't remember were it is or whether it was deleted and why... But I can say that after 85L's AF caught the subject, tracking is reliable at more than 90% or even 100%.

F1.4 iso 800 1/1000 ...

http://photos.corbi.eu …acking-Dog/14621788_U43bN

and of course DOF can't be a trouble

I didn't take time to post process the pictures, it's just to show you a complete sequence. the 85L1.2II didn't have any trouble to track the subject, even if sometimes the dog is partially hidden by a white barrier ..

And of course size of the subject doesn't have anything to see with AF tracking capability even with a 5DMKII

usually, with a low speed 5DMKII, I really prefer to shoot at the exact time of my choice. It's too rsiky to take 14 images and miss "the exact moment" they turn or are just on the top of their jump ..

and some will tell you neither 5D nor 85L can focus!

great pics BTW.