By my DOF calculator you are only going to get an acceptable DOF of .9 feet when shooting this lens at f/1.4 on a 1.6 crop body at a subject distance of 20 feet. That is not a lot of DOF and points out the downside of very fast lenses, especially when shot wide open. That would tell me I better be focusing on the face because a lot is going to fall outside the focus range, especially in action shots. Maybe play with a DOF calculator until the next game to get a feel for different working parameters.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Here are some tests I ran this morning.
Center Spot focus, 2.8 1/1600 and iso200
Dog running directly to me from a distance. See if the camera can track on successive bursts at 7fps on small target with medium contrast
First is unprocessed. Next series are heavily cropped with some LR tweaks. Good enough :-)

I have not tried a similar test at F1.4 which will be more challenging buit at 2.8, this lens pulls focus "almost" as well as my 70-200 F2.8 @2.8
Obvously I bought the lens for indoor at F1.4 but the only shots I have were pre-calibration and on my 70D whose AF is not as good as the 5DmkIV so I need to re-do that experiement.

....really thought hard about buying the Canon 85 F1.8 for 25% the price or the Sigma 85 1.4 Art at 75% ....the Canon's IS at F1.4 sealed it for me....and so far, good enough.
The closer will be for indoor on the 5D. The reach @85mm much less than the effective focal of 135mm I get on the 70D but the IQ was equal to the 70-200 on the 5D so I expect to exceed the results
from the 70D (un-calibrated) to the 5D.

Thanks Todd.
Agree, the downside is as you indicated....especially for action sports...hard to get inside the eyelashes from 20ft on a fast moving/rotating target ...lol.

With .9 ft, I should get mostly in-focus pics even if I miss the face and get the body in fast action.
Misses will come with lack of contrast in the jersey slowing the AF, overall focus pull speed of the lens (it is a beast of glass), and general *ahem* " operator error"....

I will stay my judgement on the lens ability to shoot low light sports until I do a proper apples to apples comparison with my 70-200 under more controlled conditions with one body and proper lens cal (which i now have done)

Some things I was impressed with was the AF speed relative to its peers (and my 50mm1.4 art). The speed and relative accuracy was meaningfully better (ie useable vs not useable).
....not close to the 70-200 in speed but got 70% keepers in lowlight action with the other 30% issues with contrast detection or operator error.
(5d will do better than the 70d for sure !)


I likewise have been experimenting with the 70-200 f/2.8 versus an 85mm f/1.4, at high school basketball games in poorly lit gyms. The noise between the two lenses is really noticeable. I like the 1.4 better because I can shoot at ISO 2200 versus ISO of 16,000 ! with the 2.8 lens and keep the noise at a lower level. So I will just have to be better at focusing, with the much shallower DOF from the f/1.4. I also found that doing some pre-focusing on the goal and net will get the lens closer to its focus point when the players go up for lay-ins or rebounds. Then I pick a couple of players and use AF-C with Group focus to catch them guarding. In both comparisons, the f/1.4 always delivers a less noisy image.

Overall happy and will be keeping the lens. Now just working on maximizing its potential in all shooting conditions.

(Any other ideas on this process of maximizing utility of this lens...would love to hear them :-)

I like those shots...and it is certainly a worthwhile test. It would be interesting to see what this lens could do on a 7D2. If I was going to spend that much on an 85mm I would probably just go a few hundred more and get the Canon f/1.2. But it is huge and possibly way to slow to focus from what I have read for much good action sports shooting in bursts. I have seen some great portrait shots on Flicker taken with it on 5D3 and 5D4. Even a lot of those seemed to be taken at f/2 or a little above. My philosophy is to have good stuff and not too much of it so I am sort of slow to get additional lenses. I also have too many hobbies and interests competing for my time and spare money... I am happy with a camera or two and would like to get to maybe 6-8 nice lenses. I had the chance to play with a used Canon 200-400 f/4 IS lens at the local camera shop about a year or so ago. That lens has the 1.4x TC built in too. It was very nice and was $8,500 used. I think they are about $11,000 new. I think the guy who was selling it had used it for birding. It had a Whimberly II gimbal also for sale with it.

I have not used IS much with my 70-200. I guess I should play with it more. I am usually just trying to shoot at high enough shutter speeds that I don't need it. But it would be a good thing to learn more about and mess around with too. Again it gets down to time.. I have not shot much at all in the past several months...been more involved in my woodworking shop. I will have to get back at it in the next week or two. And I have more images to get into Lightroom too. Always something to do...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

The 85 1.2L is extraordinary for shallow DOF for stationary objects. It's a specialty lens with unique bokeh characteristics but the focus by wire is a huge handicap. Only the later 1D series cope reasonably with the slow AF. I saw a recent test with AF speeds between the 1.2 & 1.4 Canon and there is a striking speed difference in AF speed. The IS really is a trumping card on the 1.4 lens and the CA is controlled better than Canon's other 85 mm renditions.

I own the 85 1.8 and I came very close just last month when a competitor to KEH had a crazy sale on 1.2L's for $1250 used in EX+ condition. They were sold out in under an hour. Given a little more time I'm sure we will see more reviews on the 1.4L but as you mentioned shooting wide open really becomes problematic with moving objects staying in focus regardless of AF & IS. My two fondest lenses for portrait are still the 100 2.8L Macro & 70-200 2.8L. I don't use the 135L F2 as much as I like but it's crazy sharp wide open. It's just not the right lens for indoor work for myself.