Other Testing new RF 85 1.2DS

tpatana · Jan 13, 2022

Got the new lens yesterday. Need to plan for proper shoot, for now I tested with my roommate. He wasn't happy though, he was wondering why I fiddle with a camera instead of giving him treats.

Anyone else has this lens? Any tips for shooting, especially portraits and models?

Copterdoc · Jan 15, 2022

I have this lens. I love it but it is making me pay much more attention to depth-of-field when composing (a good thing I guess). The DS version that I have does a good job at "smoothing bokeh" but the additional glass included in the lens for this function is said to reduce light transmission by a bit I've been told. How much I do not know but adding glass would cause this I believe and yet it is still a F/1.2 lens as marked. I have not noticed a difference but have nothing to compare with. All this is fine but there are times that the detail in the 85mm F/1.2 (non DS) bokeh is missed.

It would be nice if it were adjustable like on the RF 100mm Macro. JMHO

tpatana · Jan 15, 2022

Copterdoc said:
I have this lens. I love it but it is making me pay much more attention to depth-of-field when composing (a good thing I guess). The DS version that I have does a good job at "smoothing bokeh" but the additional glass included in the lens for this function is said to reduce light transmission by a bit I've been told. How much I do not know but adding glass would cause this I believe and yet it is still a F/1.2 lens as marked. I have not noticed a difference but have nothing to compare with. All this is fine but there are times that the detail in the 85mm F/1.2 (non DS) bokeh is missed.

It would be nice if it were adjustable like on the RF 100mm Macro. JMHO

Couple items to mention on that, it's additional coating on the lenses, not additional lens. So optically it's identical to the non-DS version. The coating reduces light by 1 1/3 stop, so while aperture (bokeh, depth of field) -wise it's F1.2, for exposure calculation it's T2.5.

The coating is also towards on the outer edge of the lenses, so when stopping down the effect wears off. I've understood around F3.2 it'll perform identical to the non-DS version.

My biggest worry with this was that I can't use it as easy for night/street -photography as it's "only" T2.5, but R5 does great in high-ISO so probably will do just fine.

Copterdoc · Jan 17, 2022

tpatana said:
Couple items to mention on that, it's additional coating on the lenses, not additional lens. So optically it's identical to the non-DS version. The coating reduces light by 1 1/3 stop, so while aperture (bokeh, depth of field) -wise it's F1.2, for exposure calculation it's T2.5.

The coating is also towards on the outer edge of the lenses, so when stopping down the effect wears off. I've understood around F3.2 it'll perform identical to the non-DS version.

My biggest worry with this was that I can't use it as easy for night/street -photography as it's "only" T2.5, but R5 does great in high-ISO so probably will do just fine.

Interesting. I was told additional glass but coating makes sense. I would like to know how this is done in the 100mm Macro as this is an adjustable trait of the lens. Not sure how well it works but if it does well then it would be nice to see this adjustment applied to the RF 85mm f1.2 DS.

tpatana · Jan 17, 2022

My understanding is that 100mm macro has moving lens for the SA control.

What's the item you want to control on DS lens? The smoothing of bokeh? The SA control on macro is not same thing as bokeh smoothing. To my taste the SA control makes it actually look unnatural, so I never touch the control.

Copterdoc · Jan 19, 2022

tpatana said:
My understanding is that 100mm macro has moving lens for the SA control.

What's the item you want to control on DS lens? The smoothing of bokeh? The SA control on macro is not same thing as bokeh smoothing. To my taste the SA control makes it actually look unnatural, so I never touch the control.

I realize the SA (spherical aberration control) is what this macro lens uses but it has the same effect of smoothing (softening) the bokeh based on all the samples I have seen. I would prefer the adjustability to the built-in smoothing of the RF 85mm F1.2. JMHO

tpatana · Jan 19, 2022

Copterdoc said:
I realize the SA (spherical aberration control) is what this macro lens uses but it has the same effect of smoothing (softening) the bokeh based on all the samples I have seen. I would prefer the adjustability to the built-in smoothing of the RF 85mm F1.2. JMHO

In my experience the SA doesn't change the bokeh amount, it changes the shape of bokeh. For 85 DS as the effect is done with coating, there's no way to control it. In a way you can control it, if you stop down to ~F3.2 then the effect goes away, but also bokeh is much less at that aperture.

tpatana · Mar 2, 2022

First time testing the lens on (super)human. Non-edited (tiny amount of levels in LR, plan to actually edit later), plus 1:1 zoom.

Other Testing new RF 85 1.2DS

tpatana

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