Canon RF 85mm 2.0 Lens: EVERYTHING you need to know! (Real-world Review)
Hey everyone, it's Vanessa Joy here and today I want to talk to you about the brand new Canon RF 85 2.0 with image stabilization. This medium telephoto lens is perfect for casual photographers like moms, streamers, street photographers, or even amateur photographers looking for a nice prime lens that's fast, low light, and doesn't break the bank.
The fast autofocus and half-life-size macro function make this a really useful lens for someone who's not looking to spend a ton of money. The 2.0 aperture lets you use this in low light, but it's also going to give you a beautiful bouquet in the image. The maximum magnification is 0.5 times and the minimum focusing distance is 1.15 feet.
An added bonus to this lens is image stabilization. I love any lens that has image stabilization, and this little baby has up to five stops of shake stabilization. What that means is that the rule of thumb for an 85-millimeter focal length is to shoot at a shutter speed of say a hundredth of a second or higher. With five stops of stabilization, you can stop down five times from that one-hundredth of a second and still be okay. Just make sure to hold still, hold your breath, and stop your heart from beating, and you'll be great.
Like a lot of the RF lenses, you have a control ring that you can custom set and the aperture has nine blades in it, so it just creates that beautifully soft bouquet. Before we jump into the images I shot with the 85-millimeter f2 RF, I want to remind you to download my free posing inspiration guide. We could all use some inspiration, and you can find the link below with lots of ideas on how to pose groups and individuals.
So, I figured I would pop in and show you some of the images that I shot with the 85-millimeter f2 RF. All of these images were shot with the R6 and I wanted to show you exactly what's coming out of the camera. I have a lot of images that I shot with the 85 2.0 in lots of different scenarios. These are all straight-out-of-camera images with auto white balance. I wanted to show you the kind of range that it has, whether you're focusing nice and close like this one here or you're focusing a little bit further away like these.
This medium telephoto lens is perfect for a variety of photographers, from casual photographers like moms or streamers to street photographers, amateur photographers, and anyone looking for a fast and low-light prime lens that won't break the bank.
One of the things I love about this lens is the fast autofocus and half-life-size macro function. This makes it a really useful lens for someone who's not looking to spend a ton of money. The aperture of 2.0 also allows for low-light shooting, the maximum magnification is 0.5 times and the minimum focusing distance is 1.15 feet. Additionally, image stabilization is a huge plus for me. This lens has up to five stops of shake stabilization, which means that you can shoot at a slower shutter speed and still get sharp images. This is especially useful for an 85-millimeter focal length, which typically requires a shutter speed of at least 100th of a second.
Another great feature of this lens is the control ring that can be custom set, and the aperture has nine blades, which creates a beautiful soft bouquet in the background. Before diving into the images I shot with this lens, I want to remind everyone to download my free posing inspiration guide. It has lots of ideas on how to pose groups and individuals.
I shot a variety of images with the 85 2.0 in different scenarios, and I'll be sharing some straight-out-of-camera images with auto-white balance. These first photos here were shot at a fairly low ISO of 200 and lower and down at 2.8 or 2.0, which gives you a good feel for the kind of range that it has. Whether you're focusing nice and close like this one here or you're focusing a little bit further away like these. We did have daylight light here so you kind of see the coloring of that. So it's pretty easy to use indoors but then we pop into the outdoors and obviously outdoors is just gorgeous and easy to use.
Even when I was shooting at 6400 ISO, the focusing was not as fast, but I was still impressed with the quality and how quickly it focused. I definitely expected it to hiccup a little bit more than it did, so that made me happy.
