Originally posted by fuent104 Too small for what? You don't even know what I was shooting.
I didn't notice I couldn't use the lens I was using while I was actually using it. Neither did the photographer using the 85 f1.2. I guess all of the files should be deleted because we couldn't use those lenses.
I guess all fast lenses might as well be thrown in the trash, too, because you can't use them. Should we just shoot everything at iso 100,000, at f8?
In my experience shooting when fast glass with a narrow depth of field the risks become very high in terms of being able to nail the exact right point of focus at a live event, and also compositionally constraining in terms of what is and isn't in focus. A camera's AF system cannot necessarily predict what you exactly want to focus on, and sometimes working around that by choosing a specific focus point and manually triggering/suppressing AF or pre-focussing on a specific point in anticipation of where you subject will be is at times insufficient due to the dynamics of the situation.
Now let's talk specifics. You mentioned a Canon 85mm f/1.2. Let's assume a EOS 5D Mark III because if you're dropping $2.2k on a lens, you might as well drop $3.4k on a full frame body. Being a portrait lens, I'll take a guess that the subject would be about 15 feet away (let me know otherwise and I can re-do the calculations). The total depth of field would be 8.04 inches. For me at least, that's risky. I would not recommend shooting everything at ISO 100,000 and f/8 since the shots would look more like something out of a point and shoot because the DoF has expanded to 5.7 feet which I would think would be compositionally too generous, I'm not sure where you got the idea I would recommend that. However, shooting at f/2 (1.12 ft DoF) or f/2.8 (1.59ft DoF) would seem to be a good way to go and gains the benefit of getting closer the lens's sweet spot when it comes to resolution, wouldn't you agree? Combine that with having the ability to bump up the ISO and not loose quality would seem to me to be an excellent combination.