Canon RF 85mm in the woods
A trip on the trails of Rhododendron
*Taken through a window of my AirBnb - note the lower contrast created by the additional optical surface
Canon RF 85mm F1.2 L @ F1.2 on my EOS R
Without a doubt Oregon is a very special place, without a doubt Mt. Hood and the area known as Rhododendron below Mt. Hood are special places, and without a doubt the Canon RF 85mm F1.2L is a very special lens. It’s a lens that I reach for almost every time I am out on a trail. It’s certainly not the smallest or lightest lens to clip onto my belt, but it never ceases to amaze me when I lift the viewfinder to my eye and look through.
The first thing without fail that strikes me every time, is the balance. Not the physical balance of the lens and camera body although I feel that with the deep grip of the EOS R there are no ergonomic problems to write home about. One thing to write home about is the seemingly near perfect balance between near perfect sharpness at the plane of focus, but absolutely stunning rendering of soft smoothness in the out of focus areas. At F1.2 especially everything just melts away insect a pleasing manner to the the eye. It just makes me smile every time I look at a photo I’ve shot with this lens.
Canon RF 85mm F1.2 @ F1.2 on my EOS R
One word that sums up what I think is so absolutely mesmerizing about this lens is a simple one, but also one with a complex meaning behind it. That word is “Rendering”. When putting together a lens like this the optical engineering and skill required to create a high performance lens with a fast aperture, “relatively” compact size and weight, for a price point under $5000 all while making sure it can autofocus is no small task in itself. But how the team at Canon behind this lens brought their skills together to accomplish all of the above while at the same time being able to create a lens with such a beautiful and artistically pleasing rendering still astonishes me to this day. Don’t get me wrong, this lens isn’t perfect (no lens is) but I rarely see images like these in a still lens. This rendering is far closer to the rendering I see from high end cinema lenses costing ten times as much as this lens.
The lens designers have been able to capture that often elusive balance of high sharpness, high global contrast, as well as micro-contrast while blending them all with just enough correction to keep transition zones free of longitudinal chromatic aberration (spherochromatism). Of course this is done with a careful amount of blending of the transitions zones with just a touch of spherical aberration present but nothing severe or distracting.
Canon RF 85m F1.2 L @ F1.2 on my EOS R
What is truly astonishing is just how much resolution and detail (MTF) is there on tap even wide open at F1.2. These is almost no optical penalty to pay shooting this lens wide open. It’s one of the first still lenses I’ve used where I have felt the the optical team behind this lens really focused on making sure it was the very best it could be at F1.2. There is really no flaws to complain about. With the standard Canon peripheral illumination turn on as is default in all their cameras there is no issue at all with vignette; of course turn this off and you will see a rather expect and noticeable vignette as is present n every F1.2 still lens I’ve ever seen.
One of the things I enjoy most about this lens is just how “clean” the bokeh is. What I mean is that there is just no sign of any “business” in the highlights or bokeh balls at all. Absolutely no “onion-rings” whatsoever. This is no doubt thanks to the fact the lens contains a hand ground aspherical element polished by Canon’s master lens craftsman, rather than a machine ground aspherical element. Another fact that just strikes me in nearly every transition area to a bight highlight is the near total lack of any kind of green / magenta fringing (longitudinal chromatic aberration -spherochromatism), even wide open. You can really thank the “BR” element or Blue Refractive element technology Canon has employed in this lens. (see my other RF 85mm F1.2 L article here for more about this)
Canon RF 85mm F1.2 @ F1.2 on my EOS R
I think one thing the comes across very clearly here is that Canon was not try to compromise this lens in any way. The most obvious statement to this effect is the front element of the lens with its rather massive (for a still lens) 82mm front filter diameter showcasing just how much light gathering potential this lens has. Could they have made it smaller, of course, they could have gone with the measly 72mm front thread of there EF 85mm F1.2 L II lens, well of course they could have, but when you hold look at the images that the RF 85mm F1.2 L produces with it’s positively massive front element, you are glad they went with that big chunk of glass up front. In fact, from the moment is was announced and I saw the size and read up on the front diameter I knew this was going to be a good lens. Canon chose the priority of image quality over size and weight. And although I can totally see why some might call this lens “less than portable” I personally see it an expression of what is possible with a mirrorless (short focal flange depth) system. Canon could simply not have made a lens anywhere close to this for a camera with a mirror in front of the shutter, and even if they got close to the quality it would be close to double the size of this RF lens. I do truly thing that this lens is destined to become a mirrorless classic and I really do applaud Canon for having the courage to make it.
