120 Better Available Light Digital Photography
The EF 85 mm f/1.2 L II USM is so fast that... How fast is it?
Shooting outdoors on a sunny day at ISO 100 with a Canon EOS
30D and the lens wide open, the required exposure exceeded the
camera’s maximum shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second. Joe had
to stop down to f/1.6 to get proper exposure with the least possi-
ble depth of fi eld. On a cloudy (really cloudy, not a “cloudy
bright”) day, he was able to shoot wide open at ISO 100 and get
good exposures at 1/1600 of a second, which produced tack-
sharp images with a delightfully shallow depth of fi eld. Bokeh is
an optical buzzword derived from the Japanese word for fool (as
in, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature), and is used to describe the
pleasing quality of an image’s out-of-focus areas. A little more
subjective than the Richter scale, most photographers know good
bokeh when they see it, even if they don’t know the term. At f/1.2,
the 85 mm f/1.2 L II produces a pleasant bokeh.
For a while Joe stopped being a fan of Skylight, UV, or even
protection fi lters, but putting a scuff mark on the front of an
expensive zoom lens convinced him otherwise. Similarly, you’ll
want to invest in a high-quality 72 mm Skylight fi lter (or what-
ever) to protect the front element of a $2,000 lens like this one.
While fi lter shopping, you might also want to pick up a Neutral
Density fi lter to let you use the lens at its widest aperture on
sunny days. A lens hood is also a good idea, but although there’s
a nice pouch included in the box, the (ES-79II) lens hood is a
$50 option.Model Dawn Clifford and Joe set
out to create a 1950s look for this
portrait. Here she’s doing her
Doris Day impression, which he
captured with the 85 mm f/1.2 L
II lens at f/3.2 and a shutter speed
of 1/60 of a second at ISO 200.
The Canon EOS 30D’s built-in
fl ash was popped up, but softened
by attaching LumiQuest’s (www.
lumiquest.com) Soft Screen. After
looking at the histogram of test
shots, he tweaked subsequent
images, adding a + 11 / 3 stop expo-
sure compensation to give a
high-key look. Applying Canon’s
“Nostalgia” Picture Style in-
camera gave this image the look
of a faded print from the ’50s. ©
2006 Joe Farace.