> Subject: RE: EOS EF 85mm f1.8 or 100mm f2
>
>
> David Hughes wrote:
> I'm replacing my 28-105mm EF lenses with a selection of primes:
>
> 28mm 2.8 (waiting for an auction to finish)
> 50mm 1.8 II (what a light and compact lenses - picked it up tonight)
>
> Now trying to decide on one for the top end.
>
> The lenses will be mainly used for portraits and general use.
>
> The two most suitable lenses seem to be the 85mm f1.8 and the 100mm f2 EF
> lenses.
>
> I'd be very interested din anybody's experiences of the lenses
> particularly
> if you have used both.
Hi David,
What do you find yourself shooting more with at the long end of your current
EF 28-105USM?
If you like to shoot people the EF 100 f/2USM is excellent for heads but is
often too tight for head and shoulders. IMO the EF 85 f/1.8USM is better
suited for head and shoulders shots and when there is more than one person
in the frame. Both will give you a nice blown out background when used wide
open, the edge going to the EF 85 f/1.8USM in this situation. Of course you
could always separate your subject from the background 5-6 more feet or so
to get the same effect as the 85mm but sometimes this is not possible to do.
The EF 85 f/1.8USM is also slightly sharper and faster focusing in my
experience. The drawback to the 85mm is that if you get too close and try
to fill the frame with a person's head some people don't look as good due
distortion pulling their features. This is not always a problem but some
faces just look better with a longer lens and sometimes that lens needs to
be a 135mm or longer. A lot of people have both an 85mm and 100mm or 135mm,
or at least a fast zoom that covers 100mm-200mm for just these reasons
though you do give up the background blur.
One of my favorite portrait lenses is my EF 300 2.8L. If you think I'm
crazy you should try it, a surprising number of top fashion shots are
captured this way! I recently watched a satellite special on how the
swimsuit issues for Sports Illustrated gets shot and discovered I'm not
crazy! These shooters are using even LONGER 400mm and 600mm lenses on the
35mm shots!
If you are planning to acquire more primes both longer and shorter you may
want to consider what you have and where you want to go. With 28mm and 50mm
lenses in the bag I'd add an EF 20 2.8USM at the short end, an EF 85 1.8USM
an EF 135 2L USM and EF 1.4X converter and eventually an EF 200 2.8L and
possibly an EF 2X converter for maximum flexibility. I suggest the EF 135
2L because this fast, outstanding lens (excellent even for a Canon "L" class
lens), is often over looked by the armatures and because of this is easy to
buy used in mint condition at a good price. It's also generally about as
long as most people need while traveling and makes an EXCELLENT portrait
lens and with the addition of the EF 1.4X becomes an excellent 190mm f/2.8
lens!
These lenses would make up an excellent reasonably small, light bag to shoot
out of for almost any non-extreme shooting situation like F1 racing or
birding.
I want to mention that I also thought about the new Canon EF 100 2.8USM
macro but this lens has too slow an aperture to get the nice blown out
backgrounds like the EF 85 1.8USM and EF 100 2USM lenses for portraits.
Also being a macro it's most likely been optimized for maximum sharpness at
extremely close focusing distances.
Hope this helps, post or email me if you have any other questions!
Regards,
Chip Louie
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