so I am capturing the action as it's happening so fast focus for me is critical.

Focus is fast and true (and quiet).

And close-up shots of any old mundane thing, with the right focus and angle becomes a masterpiece

Need to work on achieving sharper focus as I am a casual enthusiast (Canon EOS Rebel Xsi) who is just starting to wean from the automatic functions.

Lets in alot of light, great bokeh, and nice focusing

Great image quality, not too bulky, super fast focus, great boket

Focus was actually accurate vs the 1st copy which was front focusing a bit

As a portrait lens, it really can blow the backgrounds into a very nice buttery blokeh and with the Ultrasonic - I haven't missed focus once.

Silent focusing

This thing is tack-sharp, locks focus quickly and quietly, and the bokeh is incredible

Here's how I got on -The lens focused really fast, no issues there

It has a VERY strong focusing preference for sharp foreground with blurred backgrounds

Fast focus, light weight, cheap, very sharp by f2.5, sharp enough for me at f1.8!One of the best budget lenses for full frame canon

Fast focus, light weight, cheap, very sharp by f2.5, sharp enough for me at f1.8!One of the best budget lenses for full frame canon

Fast focus, great background blur and it seems to be of excellent build quality

Don't get me wrong - the 28-135 did good, but after a few hundred shots I noticed a pattern of overall better color under natural light conditions AND better auto-focus on the subjects with the EF 85.

it's a good walk around and provides tact sharp focus.

From these you move into the EF or EF-S USM lenses that use the ultrasonic motor driven autofocus - they are quieter, faster focusing, and also a bit more solidly constructed.

tack on sharpness, light weight and fast focus.

Sharp, fast focusing, lightweight, balanced contrast, beautiful imagery

Even in manual mode, getting a sharp focus was a real challenge at F1.8 or 2.8.

I had to relearn careful focusing before I made the best use of this lens, which I think it shooting with a small area of sharp focus with quick and soft drop-off

Very quiet focus and very good auto focus

Very sharp and fast auto focus

Snappy focus, brilliant colors, sharp, bokeh, etc etc etc ... all those words that positive lens reviews usually use

Crisp focus.

To name a couple, the lens offers precise auto focus and low chromatic aberration

I shoot a lot of indoor sports and have found this lens to be VERY fast focusing with sharp colors.

Great low-light lens, super-fast auto focus

Also as others have noted on this and other lenses the focus can be a little soft when it's wide open at f1.8

The focus is fast, f1.8 is great for some of the poorly lit gyms we play in, and the 85mm length is just right for taking pictures from the stands

The Bokeh is smooth, and the focus is sharp even wide open

Photos always come out nice and crisp, focus is fast and quiet, and the background is nice and creamy awesome lens for the price

Manual focus was VERY touchy

This lens lives up to its reputation of being the fastest focusing 1.8

Solid feel, smooth focusing ring, distance window, autofocus with a real Ring USM.

I wasn't able to get my subjects into sharp focus, or hold the camera steady enough for lower-light indoor shots

Fast-focusing and great image quality.

First of all the L lens has that really weird electronic focusing system

Incredibly sharp, fast focusing, solidly built, and wonderful bokeh (out of focus blur).

USM motor in this lens is amazing - Silent and very fast focus beating ever some L lenses

It rocks at indoor, daytime and night time sports with a fast lock, good focus and clear shots.

I couldn't afford the 85mm 1.2, so I snagged this one thinking it would be fine, but the focus is really soft and theres a lot of chromatic aberration

The 1.2 focuses too slow and does not focus accurately until f 1.8 anyway

My kit lens was not fast enough (hard to blur background and hard to take pictures in low light) and both the kit lens and 50mm lens did not have Ultrasonic which made me miss focus more often with moving targets

Excellent build quality and fast + accurate focus

Sharp, fast focus, and lovely bokeh

fast auto focus and quiet too

The focus is quick and absolutely smooth, no noise at all

The lens construction is solid, the focus is smooth

This is a light weight, fast focusing lens with excellent image quality.

The huge points to this lens are color saturation, crispness, fine-focus ability, and the extremely small depth-of-field obtainable through the 1.8 aperture.

The only problem I've got is manual focus

The full-time manual focus is very handy

Auto focusing not working only manual focusing

This is a compact lens, that has very fast focus and can give you great Bokeh and face compression

This lens has an amazingly clear focus, and the colors are also spectacular!I'm definitely not a professional, but I feel like this lens bumped my portrait photography up to the next level.

Great bokeh and fast auto focus.

Overall, it's VERY sharp when your focus is right, the bokeh is lovely, and the images are great SOOC (of course I add some editing still, though.

What I do not like about the lens is the focus is touchy, it drops out quick, but you can feel it happening

The only thing you should be aware of is that the depth of field at f/1.8 is paper thin, which is excellent for portraits, but requires perfect focussing

The 1.2 was very slow to focus and a lot of times at 1.2 I would come home to upload the pics and it missed focus

Great image quality, not too bulky, super fast focus, great boket

For this price, I couldn't believe how sharp and fast focusing it was

I was a little skeptical of the fixed focus at 85mm, but so far it's not been a problem.

so I am capturing the action as it's happening so fast focus for me is critical.

Pros:Great focal length for portraitsAmazing bokehGood low-light use without flashGood build qualityFast, quiet focusFull-time manual focus overridePriceCons

This is also a truly excellent lens for not-very-wide field astrophotography, although at critical focus and maximum aperture, chromatic aberration will make itself felt on the brightest stars, which you will then have to compensate for

Now for the bad part: being new this lens had insane front focus that I wasn't able to adjust with micro adjustment in my camera settings (even with

fast focus, amazing bokeh, razor sharp focus!

Generally I get the best when I manual focus

When sharp focus isn't that important, then go ahead and go to F1.8,--for environmental shots (such as when you just want the overall feeling of a scene), it does just fine

Indoor focusing is super fast and you can use faster shutter speeds

Also, the focusing is very fast

The lens is amazing , very sharp images and accurate focus

Focus is silent and spot on

Fast focusing.

This lens has a beautiful shallow focus on my Rebel T2i

The focusing is smooth and silent but I wish it had better build quality (I still use film camera and old lenses from the 70's-80's so you will understand why).The camera also gives a great bokeh (background

but it's a great lens, internal focusing, small size, big aperture and small price.

This lens is fast focusing and the B+W filter does not slow it down.

Reasonably fast focus.

Full time manual focus is handy too at times

The only negative thing I have to say about this lens is that it has no IS, but that seems to be the norm for < 300 mm prime lenses... the lack of IS causes me a bit of a headache when I'm trying to shoot in low light without a tripod and want to ensure I've got my subject in sharp focus.

I needed a lens with an f/1.8 aperture to improve my portraiture work so that I could get tight focus on my subject while making the background into fuzzy focus.

The focus is sharp and the bokeh it produces at 1.8 is quite dramatic and softer than the edged orbs you'll see with lower quality lenses or with a 50mm

This lens has a beautiful shallow focus on my Rebel T2i

And what a lens!The focus is absolutely sharp, crisp with gorgeous bokeh to make the subjects stand out.

This is an excellent inexpensive fast F/1.8 low light lens which provide very good Bokeh background, it is light weigh, fast, accurate focus, easy manual focus

The AutoFocus is smooth, wispy quiet, and moves faster than a cat on a hot tin roof, even in low light the lens performs very good focusing quickly and accurately

It has a fast focus and takes exceptionally clear pictures.

Super quiet, fast focusing

that is causing this "False focus"It is corrected for me by turning the camera off and restarting it in the aperture I am shooting or by switching the shooting mode then switching back which leads me to believe that this is strictly a limitation in the Rebel T2i innards

I bought a 50mm f/1.8 lens which really got me interested in the faster f/stops to blur backgrounds and take pictures in lower light.

I also own the EF 50mm f/1.4, but of the two I prefer this lens.

Love the fast f-stop and sharp images it produces

The good:Fast aperture = great low light shootingInsanely sharp, almost as good as my 135 f/2LBad

This is a great lens for portraits and head shots and it is really sharp until you hit F/2.8 mark, then you can get fringing and chromatic aberration, and it is really soft at F/1/8It's not as sharp as the f/1.2 and the bokeh is not as buttery, but it's still pretty good for the money

fast AF+ f/1.8 and medium telephoto length allow you to isolate subjects+ Sharp enough wide open, very sharp stopped down to f/2.8-5.6+ VERY easy to travel with (compared to L counterparts)Cons:- AF not quite as accurate as L lenses (misses more than my 70-200 IS II or 50

The f/1.2 feels like an anvil is attached to the camera.

Sorry, 85 f/1.8, but back on the shelf you go.

Sturdily built but not heavy and bulky, wonderful bokeh, great f/stop control, clarity of image - my only problem with it, really, is that it isn't as sharp as I'd like, but that's all-too-easily fixed in Photoshop.

I needed a lens with an f/1.8 aperture to improve my portraiture work so that I could get tight focus on my subject while making the background into fuzzy focus.