Canon 85mm f/1.8

Canon has two 85mm fixed focus primes in its EF lens range - the ultra fast EF 85mm f/1.2 L USM costing £1799 and the practical 85mm f/1.8 USM, which is the cheaper alternative costing £319.

Although the 85mm f/1.8 isn’t as fast as a f/1.2 or f/1.4 prime, the maximum aperture provides pleasing background blur behind subjects  and it features Canon’s Ultrasonic motor for quiet auto focusing. The AF/MF switch is nicely positioned on the barrel, making it easy to control when your eye is pressed up against the viewfinder and its AF performance is second to none. It accurately locks onto subjects with almost no hunting and if you prefer to manually focus on subjects, the large zoom ring has a refined feel that operates quickly over a quarter turn. The build quality of the lens matches the excellent build of Canon’s 20mm f/2.8 USM with a metal lens mount and the construction of nine glass elements in seven groups. The images it produces are sharp throughout the aperture range and although it vignettes slightly at f/1.8, it offers a beautiful fall off in focus.  When it’s used with full frame D-SLRs such as Canon’s 5D Mark II, the 85mm focal length is ideally suited to portrait work and you’ll often find yourself plucking it from your bag when you want to get creative with depth-of-field because it focuses to a minimum distance of 85cm. This works out at 15cm closer than the Samyang 85mm f/1.4, which we took a look at on the previous page.
Attached to a Canon APS-C sized sensor D-SLR such as the 7D, the 1.6x crop factor transforms it into a 136mm f/1.8 medium telephoto, which would be handy if you regularly work at this focal length.


AT A GLANCE
Street price: £319
Lens Mount: Canon EF&EF-S
Construction: 9 Elements in 7 groups  Max aperture: f/1.8
Min aperture: f/22
Aperture blades: 5  AF motor: No
Minimum focus distance: 45cm
Filter size: 52mm
Dimensions: 68x41mm
Weight: 425g

www.canon.co.uk