Canon 50mm f/1.0L

[frydryce]

http://www.samys.com/product.php?ItemNo=USEDCA0650F10EF

so it does exist, but its damn expensive!!!

[Ronald S. Jr.]

Yup, and not very impressive either. :|

[mrclark321]

Looks like the store is trying to retire on one sale!! LOL
There was one for sale on FM a few weeks ago and it was less than $3000
It's like a "cult" lense!

Dan

[embdude]

Being an "available light nut" the 50 f/1 has always been appealing to me. It gets a bad rap, perpetuated by those who have never used it, or have only used it under daylight conditions. (Often causing overexposure and then blaming the lens!).

Honestly, I think most people are missing the point. It is not about which 50mm is best, or how the pictures taken in daylight come out. It is about the fantastic possibilities available with a 1.0 lens.

Let’s face it; the 1.0 is not made for your day to day stuff. It is designed to be shot wide open, handheld, in the deepest darkest corners, with your flash sitting at home where it belongs!

The fact is 1.0 is a very difficult setting to use. A lot of hard work and practice must go into each good shot. It is not a lens that you can use effectively right out of the box. Most EOS photographers I fear are not willing to 'work' hard enough to get good results with this lens, and this I believe results in the bad reputation.


I have searched the web quite a bit but have not found good examples of
pictures done with the 1.0 doing what it was made to do shoot in "Available Darkness"! I’m sure someone somewhere has some fantastic work with this lens. I will keep looking.........

As for the bad rap, I think I will reserve judgment for now. I have quite a bit of experience with another Canon super fast 50mm, the infamous 50mm f 0.95
yep 1/3 faster than that slow 1.0, check it out:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...ad.php?t=89381 (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=89381)
I own and shoot regularly the 50mm 0.95, here is my observation of that lens.....

I find I must come to the defense of the as someone said "nightmare" lens. (Canon marketed it as the 'Dream Lens') Although it has a reputation, especially within Leica circles, of working as well as shooting through the bottom of a Coke bottle, it really is a pretty good lens.

It is however a difficult lens to use. Physically at 72mm it blocks part of the viewfinder and nearly half of the square that lets in light to illuminate the rangefinder patch! You could wait for brighter conditions but then isn't dimly lit what 0.95 is really about? If you shoot in daylight 0.95 is nearly impossible even with 2000 shutter speed, better get a 72mm ND filter. With only inches of sharp DOF when used wide open at distances under 20ft some (or lots of) out of focus shots are par for the course.

Imagine shooting candid’s of someone 10ft away at 0.95, if your subject or even you move just 2 inches the focus will be off! So yeah it is a difficult lens to master and really requires a lot of vigilance to get consistently good results.

Somewhat recently I took my 1961 Canon7 with 0.95 and my 2003 Leica
M6 with latest 50mm f2 Summicron out to the city, and shot 2 rolls of Kodak gold 100, with each photo repeated on the other camera. Since the Summicron is limited to f2, the Canon was likewise limited for my shoot. The results were surprisingly similar. Nice sharp photos from both cameras.

The Achilles heel of the 0.95 is its susceptibility to flare, especially veiling flare. A few of the Canon shots were nearly completely washed out with a purple cast. As for other expected lens errors none were readily apparent at f2 and above. I have noticed a tendency to halo occasionally at 0.95 but not nearly as much nor as
often as does my 60's era Pentax Takumar 50mm 1.4.