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Lenses

Canon 85mm F1.4 L VCM Review: Why Does Canon Hate Their Customers?

Alberto Lima
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Last updated on 03/25/2026
04/06/2026
7 Mins read
Canon camera with attached lens and leather strap on woven surface, Canon lens cap nearby, red logo in corner.
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Recently, Canon began releasing several prime L-Series lenses with VCM autofocusing motors. These new VCM lenses are notable for their relatively compact size, weight, fast apertures, and crazy fast autofocusing speeds. The Canon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM lens is the latest that I’ve had the opportunity to test, and for the most part it’s a great 85mm lens that offers a good balance between size and image quality. However, there’s a glaring issue with all these new lenses and it’s hard to recommend these lenses for that reason. In conversations with the Phoblographer’s Editor in Chief Chris Gampat, we’ve concluded that Canon must really hate their own customers.

The Big Picture: Canon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM Review Conclusions

A Canon camera with a leather strap rests on a woven surface next to a lens hood and a small black item.
The Canon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM on the Canon EOS R

If you’re using an older Canon camera, the Iris/Aperture control ring on the RF 85mm L VCM won’t work. Worse yet, if you’re using the very capable in 2026 EOS R (the original) the front, assignable control ring won’t work either. This was something that I encountered in previous versions of Canon’s VCM lenses and it was annoying then, today it feels outright hostile. My personal camera is the Canon EOS R8, at The Phoblographer we keep an EOS R, EOS R5, and EOS R3 on hand for reviews. This and every VCM lens we’ve tested with these older bodies are not compatible with one of the biggest improvements to these lenses – a dedicated Iris/Aperture ring.

A Canon camera with a zoom lens rests on a wooden surface, viewed from above.
The Canon RF85mm ticks most boxes but still feels like affront to photographers.

The RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM does everything it needs to do for an L-Series lens: it’s properly fast in acquiring focus, it has a sufficiently fast aperture for work in a variety of conditions and genres, and it’s the right weight where you could keep it in your gear rotation. In the most technical sense, it does everything it claims to do if you have an EOS R5 Mark II or newer. But, if you’re not changing out your camera gear every couple of years, you might find yourself with some serious buyers’ remorse. Does Canon just hate its customers?

More importantly, Canon hasn’t give us a lot of reasons to really need to upgrade in a long time.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

We’re giving the Canon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM three out of five stars. Want to try one for yourself? Check it out on Amazon for $1649.

Buy Now: Canon RF 85mm f1.4 L VCM

Experience

A Canon camera with a strap rests on wood, its screen flipped out showing a close-up image of a flower.
TheCanon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM on the Canon EOS R6 Mark III

We tested the Canon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM with a Canon EOS R6 Mark III, EOS R5 Mark II – all three on loan from LensRentals. We also tested the lens with the EOS R8 and EOS R, which we own.

When Canon introduced the VCM lens lineup I was truly intrigued. They’re a series of quality lenses that are compact, lightweight, with fast apertures, and all sharing the same lens filter thread size, it seemed like an instant homerun. Better yet, Canon was including a hardware, aperture control ring; consider me sold!

The RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM ticks off many of these boxes, but I can’t help but feel that Canon is purposely gimping older camera models in hopes that it will frustrate a photographer enough to buy a newer body.

But the more I uses these lenses, the more it’s becoming very obvious that Canon didn’t make these lenses with photographers in mind. In fact, if you’re like me and have no desire of upgrading your pre-R5 Mark II Canon body, you’ll find that at best the Iris control ring will only work in video mode. For some cameras, like my R8, you can assign aperture control to the front multi-function ring, but that dedicated Iris control is rendered useless. It’s even worse on the EOS R – you can’t even use the multi-function ring to control aperture.

Close-up of a camera lens showing a switch labeled IRIS; red logo in the bottom right corner.
Close-up image of the RF 85 F1.4 L VCM’s Iris Control Switch and Ring.

At best, you might find this quirk a little annoying, but if you’ve been using Canon cameras since the release of the original Canon 5D, you’ve been waiting and wanting more compact, lightweight lenses, with weather-resistance built into them. The RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM ticks off many of these boxes, but I can’t help but feel that Canon is purposely gimping older camera models in hopes that it will frustrate a photographer enough to buy a newer body.

Don’t.

The more time I’ve spent with Canon’s VCM line of prime lenses, it becomes clear that these lenses are primarily aimed at the unicorn that marketers call “the hybrid photographer.” I’m not suggesting that this photographer doesn’t exist, just that it feels like an affront to those of us who are only interested in tools for still photography. Overall, the lens feels wonderful in the hand – it’s compact but not tiny, lightweight, but still feels like its solidly built – and if you’re the proud owner of a newer Canon body, you can also enjoy the benefits of a dedicated aperture control ring. For everyone else, we can start doing the mental math of just how much we’ll be in debt to use, what is otherwise, a hardware control ring on a lens.

Image Quality

Close-up of a Canon camera with a lens showing focus and aperture markings, on a blurred background.
This sample image was used in our Zeiss Otus ML 1.4/50 Lens Review. It’s an in-camera focus stacked image using the RF85mm F1.4 L VCM

My love-hate relationship continues with Canon. The RF85mm F.14 L VCM can produce some beautiful images that are both sharp and give photographers a beautiful color palette to work with. The color the lens produces are bright while keeping the images tack sharp – regardless which body we used. In fact, I found myself quite confidently using the JPEG images for gigs and for some of the product images on this site. Yes, the 85mm focal length is often associated with portrait photography but the RF85mm L VCM can be great for street, product, events, and anything else in between.

Here are some unedited sample photos taken with the Canon RF 85mm F1.4 L VCM lens:

A sunlit home office with a chair, desk, computer, and houseplants by a large glass door.
A person plays piano by candlelight in a dimly lit room with large windows and framed photos on the wall.
Shelves filled with vinyl records and a colorful beer tap list in a dimly lit bar or cafe.
Bottles of liquor on shelves behind glass, with a golden, blurred, and abstract light effect.
A chalkboard beer list is displayed in front of shelves filled with vinyl records and beer cans.
Two people sit at a dimly lit bar; one wears a hoodie reading “cut that, cut that, cut that.”.
A man with glasses and a beard relaxing on a couch in sunlight, wearing a brown sweater.
A person holding a Canon camera indoors, focusing through the viewfinder, with sunlight shining in.
Dimly lit bar with multiple reflections of people and lamps, warm tones, and a red circular logo in the corner.
Abstract photo of a bar with bottles, glasses, and records, shown in overlapping, vibrant orange and yellow tones.
A woman holding a drink stands at a dimly lit bar with warm lighting and patrons in the background.
Dimly lit restaurant with framed photos on the wall and people dining at tables; warm, moody ambiance.
A black camera with a brown strap rests on a table, partially lit by sunlight, with a red logo in the corner.
A man speaks at a church podium with a Sabbath School in Progress banner; people listen in pews.

These sample photos have been edited:

A white office chair and plants sit by a bright window in a cozy, sunlit room with wooden floors.
A man with glasses sits indoors by a window, looking thoughtfully at the camera.
A woman sits alone by a window in a dimly lit café with warm lighting and framed art on the walls.
A person stands by a window in a dimly lit café with warm light and framed art on the walls.
A person plays piano by a window in a dimly lit, cozy room with framed art on the wall.
A bearded man with glasses sits on a couch in sunlight, wearing a brown sweater and smartwatch.
Man wearing glasses and a smartwatch taking a photo with a camera indoors, sitting on a couch.
Man with glasses and a beard smiling while taking a photo indoors with a DSLR camera.
A bearded person with glasses takes a photo indoors while sitting on a couch, holding a camera up to their face.
A vintage camera with a leather strap sits on a dark surface in sunlight, with magazines in the background.
A man speaks at a podium labeled Sabbath School In Progress in a church with empty chairs behind him.
A man in a blue suit and a woman reading at a podium stand in a nearly empty church sanctuary.
A man and woman speak on stage, each holding a microphone, in a church setting with wooden chairs behind them.

Do You Really Want to Buy from Canon?

We believe that everyone should be aware of the ethical decisions that they’re making when they spend money. So to do this, we research the companies that whose products we test and make folks aware of both possible concerns and reasons to feel great about giving a company your money.

Here’s what we’ve got for Canon:

  • Several of Canon’s products may contain potentially harmful chemicals, as described under California’s Proposition 65/Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.
  • Like many other companies, Canon has recently begun working with more artists from diverse (non-white/European) regions, including members of the African Diaspora, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas; one such example is the Miraisha Project, which aims to increase employment opportunities and skills training in Africa. Locally, Canon has provided support to the BLACK PEARL’s Culture@ Campaign.
  • Since the early 2000s, Canon has become more proactive in its sourcing and supply chain practices to ensure that its suppliers/vendors meet Canon’s corporate ethics, environmental conservation goals, and ensure the rights of their suppliers’ workers. You can find their full Sustainability Policy here.
  • In Canon’s 2025 Sustainability Report, a third-party researcher concluded that Canon has continued making progress in its sustainability goals.
  • We’ve previously questioned Canon’s employment practices when it comes to equality.
  • Canon has been known to offer misogynistic responses to criticism about what they think of women.
  • Canon has had to recall several devices in the past. Some of these were cameras.
  • Class Action Lawsuits have been taken against Canon for printer issues.
  • Customers have been actively leaving Canon because of the lack 3rd party options.

Declaration of Journalistic Intent

The Phoblographer is one of the last standing dedicated photography publications that speaks to both art and tech in our articles. We put declarations up front in our reviews to adhere to journalistic standards that several publications abide by. These help you understand a lot more about what we do:

  • At the time of publishing this review, Canon isn’t running direct-sold advertising with the Phoblographer. This doesn’t affect our reviews anyway and it never has in our 15 years of publishing our articles. This article is in no way sponsored.
  • Note that this isn’t necessarily our final review of the unit. It will be updated, and it’s more of an in-progress review than anything. In fact, almost all our reviews are like this.
  • None of the reviews on the Phoblographer are sponsored. That’s against FTC laws and we adhere to them just the same way that newspapers, magazines, and corporate publications do.
  • Canon did NOT loan the unit or any accessories to the Phoblographer for review. There was no money exchange between us or their 3rd party partners and the Phoblographer for this to happen. Manufacturers trust the Phoblographer’s reviews, as they are incredibly blunt.
  • Canon knows that it cannot influence the site’s reviews. If we don’t like something or if we have issues with it, we’ll let our readers know.
  • The Phoblographer’s standards for reviewing products have become much stricter. After having the world’s largest database of real-world lens reviews, we choose not to review anything we don’t find innovative or unique, and in many cases, products that lack weather resistance. Unless something is very unique, we probably won’t touch it.
  • In recent years, brands have withheld NDA information from us or stopped working with us because they feel they cannot control our coverage. These days, many brands will not give products to the press unless they get favorable coverage. In other situations, we’ve stopped working with several brands for ethical issues. Either way, we report as honestly and rawly as humanity allows.
  • At the time of publishing, the Phoblographer is the only photography publication that is a member of Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative. We champion human-made art and are frank with our audience. We are also the only photography publication that labels when an image is edited or not.

More can be found on our Disclaimers page.

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