Howdy You Again everyone and today I'll Be retesting a very popular old Canon Lens all the way from 1992 on a modern camera the Canon EF 85 Mm f1.8 USM astonishingly despite its Design being 31 years old now Canon are Still selling new copies of this lens For a price of about $500 or a little Under £500 here in the UK you can easily Find a good copy of this lens on eBay For about half of that price though People might still be interested in this Lens if they're still using a Canon Digital aslar camera rather than Mirorless or if they want to adapt it Onto an RF or eosm Mount camera to have An official Canon portrait lens in their Kit bag at a relatively affordable price This is one of my wife's favorite lenses As this is the exact copy which was her First ever portrait lens that she owned She used to use it on an old Canon 50d Before she and I ever met and now I'm Going to torture the poor thing on my Canon EOS R5 and R7 stress test back in 1992 a 45 megap digital camera was Pretty unimaginable but this lens has a Good reputation for sharpness so I can't Wait to see it what it can do as you can See here the lens has a small handy size Weighing 425 G or about a pound and has Very typical build quality for a Mid-range lens of its era made of Plastic but feeling nice and solid with
Tactile surfaces it's based on a metal Lens mount without any visible weather Ceiling and you also get a raised Automanual Focus switch then comes the Rubberized Focus ring which turns fairly Smoothly about 100° or so it is Mechanically connected to the USM Focus Motor but on a clutch system which means That you can turn that Focus ring at any Time the autofocus as you'd imagine is Lovely and fast emitting only a very Quiet wishing sound as it goes on my old Digital SLR cameras I remember it wasn't Amazingly accurate when shooting through The viewfinder however when shooting on A modern mirorless camera with an Adapter there contrast based systems Ensure good accuracy all the time and You can get subject and eye detection Autofocus as well there here you can see That the lens struggles with fairly Heavy focused breathing it's Surprisingly strong here actually the Lens's filter thread is 58 mm wide and a Plastic lens hood is available which Clips onto the front and annoyingly Spins around the lens does not feature Image stabilization overall classic Canon build quality from 30 years ago Here and it's really pleasing to see This thing still working absolutely fine Quite perfectly really adapted onto a Mirrorless Camera okay time to take a look at image
Quality let's see what 1992 can do Firstly adapt it on to a Canon EOS R5 With its fullframe 45 map sensor in Camera Corrections are turned on for This test at f1.8 we are seeing decent Sharpness in the middle but slightly low Contrast and more obviously very strong Purple fringing which can be pretty Difficult to clean up and editing over In the corners the good news is that Sharpness is keeping up but purple Finging is still visible as well as a Little ghosting on contrasting edes but I have some good news for you stop down To f2.8 for sharpness and contrast to Become excellent in the corners of the Image without color fringing and back in The middle that purple fringing is also Gone and the sharpness is looking pretty Good stop down to F4 and sharpness and Contrast become perfect from the middle To the edges stop down as far as f11 and Softness Creeps in due to defraction and F-16 is looking noticeably soft still a Very nice performance on full frame here It's only really at f1.8 where the lens Starts to show its age but more with Problems concerning color fringing and Slightly low contrast so let's really Torture this thing by adapting it onto My Canon EOS R7 with its 32.5 map apsc Sized sensor one of the most demanding Out there today impressively at f1.8 and In the middle sharpness is still quite
Good unsurprisingly though purple Finging is magnifying by the more Demanding sensor and is getting a little Out of control Corner image quality is Noticeably softer now but still holding Itself together just about stopped down To f2.8 and the purple fringing is Almost gone but the image isn't really Any sharper back in the middle though Picture quality is looking great now Stop down to F4 and that's about as Sharp as you can get on this sensor and Back in the corners we see an Improvement also f5.6 and f8 look just About perfect in the corners and as You'd expect f11 and F16 get much softer Due to defraction so it's clear the R7 Is a tougher playing field and the lens Is really showing its age at brighter Apertures it's still usable at f1.8 but You'll want to keep it away from high Contrast subjects or at least shoot them In black and white if you don't want Them to be bathed in radioactive purple Okay let's turn off in camera Corrections and take a look at Distortion and fetting on a fullframe Camera the good news is that the optic Projects almost no Distortion at all the Bad news is that vignetting at f1.8 is Unsurprisingly high it's too down to F2.8 though and it's almost completely Gone so that's not a bad performance the Lens can focus down to 85 CM which is
Pretty much dead average for an 85 mm Optic at this close distance the image Is a little softer and you're also Treated to all of the purple at this Setting stop down to f2.8 and that color Finging is gone stop down to F4 and Sharpness and contrast become excellent Again let's see how well this lens copes Against bright light when I get into Your picture there's a fair bit of Glaring to be seen here as well as some Broad but not too opaque flaring next Bcka this lens's bcka generally looks Quite soft although PE highlights get a Bit of a nasty green outline Particularly if you're shooting on an Apsc camera And well that's probably because of Longitudinal chromatic aberration here You can see that typically for a lens of This era color fringing on Baka Highlights is disturbingly strong it's Still there at f2.8 but at F4 and f5.6 It's virtually gone overall this is Definitely an 85 mm lens of its era and By that I mean it's sharp but you'll Have to put up with quite a few color Fringing issues that modern lenses Mostly manage to S stamp it can be Annoying but it's still quite an Effective lens for portrait and subject Photography blah blah blah thanks for Watching blah blah blah camera lenses Blah blah blah patreon and thank you to
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