Canon EF 85mm 1:1.8 USM

With the exception of purple fringing in harsh contrast situations the lens performed extremely well. If you're looking for a near-perfect portrait lens - well, stop here - you've found it! Naturally the lens has also a life beyond portraits. It's also nice for compressed landscape shots and all aspects where you need to seperate your main subject from the background by using a very large aperture. The silky smooth bokeh (background blur) is a nice extra here. And the good news is: the lens is also very affordable at just 350EUR.

The Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is a very desirable lens and, surprisingly, a very affordable one. Both contrast and resolution are very good straight from f/1.8 and excellent at medium aperture settings. On APS-C DSLRs there's only a moderate degree of vignetting at f/1.8 and beyond it's a non-issue. Neither distortions nor lateral CAs are something to worry about in field conditions. However, bokeh fringing (LoCAs) can be visible in some scenes and in extreme situations you may also spot some purple fringing. The quality of the bokeh is generally very good at f/1.8 (apart from the LoCA problems) but the lack of circular aperture blades shows up in out-of-focus highlights when stopping down. The build quality of the lens is very good and the AF performance leaves nothing to be desired. Highly recommended!