This blog post is for all of my non-techy camera and lens loving friends out there! For a brief moment in time, I owned the Canon 85mm 1.4 EF version as well as the Canon 85mm 1.2 RF version. So, I figured I would take some pics with both lenses on my Canon r6mkii and let you guys see the results!!
Let's dive in!
Ok, so here we go! Please know, I am no tech guru. I don't know the specifics of both lenses. I don't know the sharpness level, the focus length, the color fringing and all that jazz, I just know what I see. And right off the bat, I have to be honest, I don't see a HUGE difference in the two photos above! Do you? Which one do you think was taken with the RF lens and which on was taken with the EF version? Here, I'll zoom in more to see if you can tell:
Still hard to tell? Let me give you some info - both of these were shot at a 1.4 aperture, 100 ISO and shutter speed of 1/2000 and they were taken less than 30 seconds apart. Also, both of these have not been edited in any way. So same exact settings, but for me, when you are zoomed in like this, I notice a difference. The difference I see is that the photo on the left has a very slight orange hue to it. It is not extremely noticeable, but the skin coloring is warmer and the background appears just slightly darker. The image on the right has a more neutral tone to it - less orange on the skin coloring and in the hair. The image on the right also seems to pull more green tone than orange.
So, ready know which is which? If you guessed that the image on the left was taken with the EF version of the 85mm 1.4 and the image on the right was taken with the RF 85mm 1.2, you would be right.
As far as bokeh, both seem to produce a pretty smooth background. I personally notice that the image on the right, the RF image, is just a touch creamier and the coloring seems to be just slightly brighter. The lens doesn't pull the orange from the willow tree branches as strongly as the image on the left does. Let's check out a couple more images.
Again, the image on the left was taken with the Canon EF 85mm 1.4 and the image on the right was taken with the Canon RF 85mm 1.2. Same settings - F1.4; 1/2000 and ISO of 100 and no editing. When not cropped in, the images look extremely identical. Like, so much so that at first I was kicking myself for dropping SO much money on the RF version when it was obvious that the latest EF version did just as good of a job. It is only when we zoom in that I feel like more of a difference is noticeable:
Aaaaaand even closer.....
By the way, my husband doesn't know I made this blog post and zoomed in so much on his photos. I'm sure he would be thrilled to find out though. Syke. Again, and this is just me, but I don't notice a color difference when the photos are not zoomed in. However, when they are, I do notice a very slight orange tint in the skin coloring in the photos taken with the EF lenses. Am I crazy or do you guys see that too?
So, in all, both lenses do an amazing job. Extremely sharp, gorgeous bokeh, very fast, and great colorings on both. At the time of this post, the Canon EF 85mm 1.4 is sold out but had a retail value of $1,749. I see a lot of used listings on places such as B&H or Adorable for around $1,300. The cost of the Canon RF 85mm 1.2? A mere $3,099. I cry a little as I write that. I did not buy mine for that price since I got it used but holy cow guys - that is one heck of an expensive lens!!
My overall thoughts - if you have the Canon EF 85mm 1.4 and are considering getting the RF version and have a lot of spare money to do so, go for it. For some reason, I rarely reached for my EF version, but boy do I use the heck out of my RF lens. It is actually now one of my favorite lenses and my go to for senior portraits like the ones below. I know this sounds so cliche, but there truly IS something a bit magical about it. The coloring and the smooth bokeh just make it a really fantastic lens. But! If you are going to be breaking the bank in order to upgrade, I don't know that it is worth it! As you can see from these photos, there really is not a major, glaring difference here between the EF and RF version in my eyes.
On that note, I will leave you with a few more senior portraits taken with my RF 85mm 1.2!
