A character with glass peculiarities

As a former Niko photographer I have Canon Nuntzer envied certain lenses - one of which is the 85L. Since I mainly men and Citiyscapes Scan was, among other things, this lens is a reason to get me a EOS body. I use the 85L at a 1DsMkIII. I myself have the Mk I version of this Obejktives and the review also refers to this version. But since a lot of details in the two versions remain the same I think that it might be helpful anyway.

The scope of delivery is typical fully L: lens, the two covers that GeLi and a bag. The bag is a little insufficient for such an expensive part, but come with me eh not used. The lens weighs about 1 kg and when viewed from the front by pointing to the most of it also is glass. At my MkIII I find the weight of not disturbing the balance is excellent. The GeLi is relatively large for effective and locks the focus ring. The AF is very slow, but precise - he has to move a lot of glass because the front lens assembly moves completely. This means that the lens at a piece of MFD is longer - rotate as doing nothing, however, polarizing filter could therefore be used without problems. In the Mk II version of the AF speed is increased by a factor of 1.6 - but it's so still one of the slowest focusing lenses in the Canon range. I personally have no problem with it though - children playing are but in general probably too fast ....

A peculiarity of this lens (and also one of the 50 / 1.0L), the manual focusing via wire is done - that is, the lens focuses the AF motor, the focus ring controls the only and there is no mechanical connection. Thus, the focus ring turns very easily, but the camera must be switched to manual focus can and you realize that the movement of the lens is always something of the rotational movement the focus ring is lagging behind. It works - but there are more comfortable manual focusing. Also you have to turn the camera on to the lens to bring back in the shortest state - annoying if you forget the bag and is so close that fits in the Kam-lens combination only in short condition. ;) The lens (MkI and MkII) have a floating mechanism which focus shifts by stopping at a short shooting distance prevented. A little practice requires the use of the glass already - the area of ​​sharpness at 85mm and f 1.2, depending on the distance already very low.

The image quality is already open excellent - much better than my 50 / 1.2L and 50 / 1.0L open. Light dimming increases the image quality again. The Bokeh is open outstanding - a dream, but can due to the high degree of correction of the construction in dimmed state in some backgrounds sometimes be unpleasant. The lens has an aspheric element. This is to be drawn in particular during night and AL shooting point light sources remain very well as point-like and not by coma error in Schwalbe form. Neither übermäsige tendency to vignetting (when open also naturally present - but not annoying for my application) nor a übermäsige backlight sensitivity are noticed. The MkII version has an improved compensation which the backlight sensitivity decreases safe again. CA I can not judge because I will not usually occur Scan in shooting situations where.

In sum: I think that this is a specialist (not only - but especially) for people - a dream lens for me! Despite the heavy weight, size and price 5 stars from me.