When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission. Canon EOS R5 II | Canon RF 85mm F1. 4 L VCM | F5 | 1/640 sec | ISO 3200Photo: Richard Butler Last week, Canon announced the RF 85mm F1.
4 L VCM, a new telephoto lenses made for portraits and video work. The company also invited our editor Richard Butler to Japan, to take a tour of their factory (so keep an eye out for some exciting stuff coming down the line), and on the trip he got the opportunity to take several portraits with it, along with other images that fit the focal length.
We processed the samples using our standard Capture One workflow, which includes digital geometric distortion corrections. However, unlike with some of the wider lenses in Canon's current F1. 4 lineup, the company says those aren't required for this lens, and indeed we've found them to be relatively subtle.
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Canon EOS R5 II | Canon RF 85mm F1. 4 L VCM | F8 | 1/200 sec | ISO 500
Same file, exported from Adobe Camera Raw with and without distortion correction.
As with other lenses in this line, we found the declicked aperture ring to be somewhat unsatisfying for photography; the lack of discrete stops meaning it doesn't give any sense of feedback when you change your aperture setting, so we tended to leave it in its locked position and control the lens from the camera's command dials.
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2025-9-21 16:00
