Early 50l Review

Posted last night over at Fred...

http://www.fredmiranda​.com …owproduct.php?p​roduct=305

Remember though, thats only 1 persons opinion.

Any moderately sceptical member of POTN could have written that review without even handling the lens.

It's still very early days for this one - if i had a full frame i'd love a copy, but on a crop camera, 50mm does not do it for me.

bah, the reviewer only has 20 posts. he needs at least 2,500 before I will read any of it. I'd still like one.

Reading over the pros and cons, I'm waiting for a second opinion. He basically says that it performs very well and is well built, but since it's expensive and doesn't have a floating element design, it's only worth a "6". I wonder if a floating element focus design would have raised his appraisal to a "7" if the optical results were the same or poorer.

His preconceived notions aside, he makes some good points. I am really interested in seeing results from this lens. The one shot I have seen over and over again is the one on the Canon web site, and frankly it is less than inspiring. I would have expected something more impressive from the Canon marketing deparment.

I hope this lens performs much better than a 6 out of 10. I really want it to perform at its price point. After all, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 has poor build quality and for that reason alone I have avoided it.

Will be very nice to read some "real" reviews on this lens written by someone that has tested it properly.

I know I'm revealing a fairly staggering level of ignorance here, but what exactly is a floating element?

thats a pretty stupid review. it performed well in everything. but he didnt quite like the lack of a floating element, for whatever reason i cant understand, and price so he gave it a poor review? shouldnt he have known that BEFORE he bought the lens. he doesnt give any details really of how well it performed. and of course its not going to have the fastest focusing, the 85 1.2 proves that. and the bokeh remark was dumb to, a longer lens at the same aperture is going to give a thinner DoF, its just a simple fact.

steved110,

Good question

C&P

Extending the lens (focusing lens group) for focusing usually degrades the image quality at close focusing distance. For a wide angle lens, in particular, the extension of the focusing lens group causes curvature of field, a phenomenon where focus is slightly different between center of the film plane and peripheral part due to increasing aberration caused by lens extension. The floating system is developed to correct such fluctuation of aberration, moving a part of the optical system separated from the focusing lens group. The floating system is mainly applied for wide angle lenses. In the EF lens series, however, it is also used in many type of lenses, such as large aperture lenses, middle telephoto lenses and macro lenses, to upgrade the picture quality taken at all shooting range, from the shortest focusing distance to infinity. This mechanism is named "floating", because an optical part moves like a float, not in union with the rest of focusing lens group.

http://www.canon.com …seum/tech/room/​f_flo.html

Sorry, I put no credence in that review. For many reasons. just one that should be so obvious to that photog is: thinking that a lens with more glass up front to get a 1.2 aperture could be able to focus as fast as a 1.4 . Eh... 1.2 85 should focus as fact as 1.8 85? Physically not possible.

I am going to wait and see for myself.!!!

Dante King wrote in post #2185743
Sorry, I put no credence in that review. For many reasons. just one that should be so obvious to that photog is: thinking that a lens with more glass up front to get a 1.2 aperture could be able to focus as fast as a 1.4 . Eh... 1.2 85 should focus as fact as 1.8 85? Physically not possible.

I am going to wait and see for myself.!!!

Or if you really want an intelligent review, wait till Ken Rockwell publishes his review of the lens.

My main interest will be in seeing how it performs in the hands of acknowledged masters - and seeing the pictures they take. Reviews can be a bit dry and the technical stuiff tends to make a whooshing noise and go right over my head.

Thanks for the explanation about the floating element thing, shaun. It actuially did make sense, you have a gift for teaching!

For a crop camera my feeling is that this will make a better portrait lens than the 85 - but I'd need something special to be able to justify this lens....as things stand it doesn't appeal to my wallet or my skill level. But I am enjoying all the speculation, and can't wait for Dante to get his hands on one!

Go Dante!

What a useless review that was! He was surprised that a 50/1.2 uses so much less glass than an 85/1.2? I should think in terms of diameter it would be close to 50/85ths! No floating design? Is he saying he knows lens design better than Canon? He doesn't say anything negative about the lens image quality, so where's the problem with the design? It's heavy? It uses a lot of glass - all fast lenses are heavy. I'm with Dante on this one. Let's see a proper review. It'll never be worth that much of MY money, but I'm still interested to know what it's really like.

steved110 wrote in post #2185224
Any moderately sceptical member of POTN could have written that review without even handling the lens.

It's still very early days for this one - if i had a full frame i'd love a copy, but on a crop camera, 50mm does not do it for me.

I'm sure part of their reason for doing a 50, was the 1.6 crop users. It gives you near the same FOV has the 85 1.2L on full frame. Previously the 85L would be too long on a 1.6 crop camera.