May I apologise if this question has been asked before: I'm after a portrait lens for my F1N AE, I already own the following Canon lenses:28mm 2.8, 35mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 50mm 1.8, 135mm 3.5 and 300mm 5.6. I'm looking for a Canon 85mm, and would welcome views/reviews etc on Canon 85mm lenses and/or any other recomendations for portrait lenses.

best wishes Mike

-- Mike Wilde (Mike@wilde38.freeserve.co.uk), November 27, 1999

Answers

The two lenses you might want to look at are the 85mm f1.8 and the 100 f2.0.

Both are a good length for portraiture, and both are fairly fast to blur the background.

Canon also made the 85 f1.2 L lens, which is an amazing lens, and so is the price. :) I have heard of some problems with T90s and getting the focus exactly right though.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), November 29, 1999.

There is a review at http://www.kjsl.com/canon- fd/lenses/reviews/short-tele.html

I have this lens in the new FD mount and have used it for the odd bit of portrait work. In general I agree with the assessment above. Canon indicates in one of their brochures that the lens is a bit soft wide open. I find this gives a slight pleasant glow - very much like a softening filter. From f4 on it's as crisp as any other Canon lens. The background is thrown out of focus quite nicely below f4 (good bokeh) which a slower lens will not do quite as well.

One problem I have with this lens is that it doesn't focus quite as close as I would like. For my style, I run out of helicoid at 0.85 m, just as the image is getting interesting. If you think this may be a problem, perhaps the 100 macro or one of the aftermarket macro lenses may be a better choice.

-- Duane K (dkucheran@creo.com), November 29, 1999.

The Tamron SP 90/2.5 macro is a well built lens with great resolution and contrast.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@ase.com), November 30, 1999.

I would have to second the view about the Tamron SP 90/2.5 (I have used it on an A1 -I recently added a T90 bought 2nd hand while in Japan)- the Tamron has real "snap" in terms of its focussing as only such a large aperture can give you - but more importantly it is a macro lens down to 1:2 (you do need an extension tube to go 1:1 however)- as the casual shooter of flowers etc. as I am it is great - when you get that close the possibilities of differential focus effects really open up another world (as well as the portraiture you seem to mainly want it for. Its the only non Canon lens I have and I bought it about 15 years ago when I saw a review that compared the Tamron and the Canon 100 macro (at twice the price) and I recall that the Tamron saw it off in that review- so its a good value quality lens, and at the right price iamsure you will get a lot of enjoyment out of what is a real double purpose lens. Get up close to flowers etc and you will wonder how you did without a macro lens! (and I'm not even a botanist or anything)

-- Michael Hudson (mhuds@doh.health.nsw.gov.au), December 02, 1999.