As I so often say, prime lenses are fun. They are often better than zooms, lighter, and faster. And they enforce compositional discipline.
Like the 85mm f/1.2 lens that I rented it from www.gtalensrentals.com (because when I can not afford a piece of equipment, or when I want to try it out, or when it’s something I would use only a few times a year, I rent.)
All shot handheld with the Canon 85mm f/1.2L prime lens.
What I love about this lens: The quality. It is ridiculously sharp. Its focus mechanism, whether engaged (manual focus) or not is ridiculously smooth, a real pleasure to use. No scratchy scrapy movement: smooth effortless “air hockey” gliding instead.
This lens is razor-sharp wide open, too, and has beautiful bokeh (the “creamy” nature of the blurry background):
What I like less: if his lens had IS (stabilization), that would be great. And if it could only focus a little closer… its closest distance is almost one metre/3ft.
You see, that startles Mau as well:
These shots were made at 1/200th sec, f/1.4, 3200 ISO in a pretty dark room. The kind of thing you can do with a prime.
Go rent this lens: since I returned it, it’s available. Warning, though, I plan to get it again for Tuesday’s corporate portrait shoot!
“And if it could only focus a little closer”…
Isn’t that the case with two-thirds of all SLR lenses?
There’s no fancy trickery required to get a decent close focus distance. Worst case, it means making the lens barrel a centimetre longer and extending the focus helicoids by the same amount.
Maybe they’re just trying to get all of us to buy a dedicated macro lens….
And maybe they are… though maybe it’s just that they imagine everyone uses this only as a portrait lens, which needs you to be not close. In any case, shame that I cannot focus more closely. Otherwise, a lens that approaches perfection.
To add to Michael’s comment, this lens was designed to be used as a portrait/fashion lens. See this wiki article http://goo.gl/dF7Etg