Question for Canon 85mm f1.8 owners

Blurmore

I've owned the 85 1.8 for like 5 months now and I liked it until I got my 70-200 f4L. My complaint with it now is an apparent and fatal lack of contrast. I notice it looking through the viewfinder. I do understand that through the viewfinder I am looking through a f1.8 hole, which is inherently more prone to flare and other contrast killers than an f4 hole. A look at the histograms yields that the 85 has no left side, even in shots purposefully under exposed. I'm starting to wonder if I got a dud, or if I am just experiencing L spoiling. There is no lack of sharpness in the lens, it is critically sharp at f2 and smaller, but I don't feel comfortable shooting anything but raw with it. I use Adobe raw and my usual conversion involves adding at LEAST 14 points on the shadow slider and sometimes an additional 25 points of contrast. I'm going to experiment with using a larger than spec hood, and possibly some contrast enhancing filter. If anyone else has noticed this with their 85mm f1.8 please respond. I will post some examples soon. Thanks.

Ok, a check of terminology on Tiffen's website made me realize I'm not stating this right, and possibly that I am complaining about something 'good'. According to what I learned at Tiffen the lens is suffering from 'high contrast' or the shadows are nice and light but the highlights are not blown out. Everything is kinda humped in the middle of the histogram. I don't have a problem adjusting every image to darken the shadows, but the fact that the 70-200 f4 L's images look better 'out of the camera' with a nice even curve across the histogram remains. I've never printed anything directly from my digital camera, and I probably never will, but I would be curious to see how this would effect prints from film if no enhancement was applied by the lab.

risource

my 85mm1.8

Blurmore wrote:

I've owned the 85 1.8 for like 5 months now and I liked it until I got my 70-200 f4L. My complaint with it now is an apparent and fatal lack of contrast. I notice it looking through the viewfinder.

I'll wait for pix. I love my 85 for the speed and focal length, but haven't critiqued the quality (sometimes I need that speed!). Otherwise I shootmostly L lenses. I need speed so my 70-200 zoom is the L at 2.8.

Andy

yeah, i find it to be nice and contrasty. i'll wait for pics, too