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Canon 50mm
1.2 In Depth Review:
Hey whats up everyone, my name’s
Chris Winter and today I’m going to take a look at one of Canon’s top prime lenses, the Canon 50mm 1.2.
With a huge f1.2 aperture, this lens is definitely one of the most desired lenses around, but today i’ll take a look to see if it’s worth the very big price tag.
And I’d also like to say a big thanks to
Brisbane Camera Hire for letting me rent out this lens for review, but anyway let’s get started.
Let’s first take a look at the build quality of this 50mm 1.2. The first thing you’ll notice is that this lens is big and heavy, and is designed for a pro environment.
One of the best things about this 50 1.2 is it’s focus ring.
It’s huge and it’s very smooth.
I’ve used this do some lovely focus pulls in video work and it’s been a treat.
If we move towards the back here we can see that we’ve got a metallic mount, which is a given for a lens at this price and another lovely pro feature is weather sealing, which means this lens will work great in nearly all conditions.
At around 580g this is definitely not a light lens, but again if you’re going to be rocking this on a 5d or 6d, it’ll feel about right. So overall build quality is top notch.
Let's talk quickly about the focal length.
If you’re looking for a lens that will produce incredibly dreamy shots with that very shallow depth of field, look no further than the 50 1.2
I’ve been so impressed with just how nice it’s background blur is and, how easy it is to produce.
As you can see you can really get some lovely shots with this lens. It’s creamy and not distracting.
And it’s one of the reasons you’ll buy this lens. If you’re looking for some serious background blur, you’ll love the 1.2
Let's quickly talk about macro.
The 50mm 1.2 has a minimum focus distance of 45cm, the same as it’s little brother for f1.4. As you can see you can’t get incredibly macro shots but it does produce some nice results.
Knocking it down to around f8 produces some nice shots, but if you’re after a dedicated macro lens, there are definitely better options.
If you watched my review of the Canon 50mm 1.4, you’ll know that the AF performance isn’t the best.
And the 50mm 1.2 surprisingly isn’t much better. It’s not a super slow lens but it’s not something that I’d rely on to shoot fast moving sports or wildlife.
And nailing focus at f1.2 can be difficult anyway with such a shallow depth of field.
It’s not a bad performer, but if you want to get you’re shot perfectly in focus, I’d recommend taking to your time.
Having such a shallow depth of field can be very hard to manually pull focus in video work, so i’ve been happy that the 50mm 1.2 works welll in AF for video.
It’s not at the level on the new
STM lenses, but it’s relatively responsive and is very quiet.
Again, shooting at f1.2 is probably not something you’d want to do anyway.
But overall it did perform really well.
Let's talk about price now, and this is where things head north.
Coming in at around …
.. the 50mm 1.2 isn’t cheap, especially compared to it’s baby brothers the 1.8 and 1.4. You could buy about 10 50mm 1.8 lenses for just one of these 1.2 lenses.
But if you’re working in a pro environment where quality is key, it might just be a good investment. For me it’s a bit too expensive, but there is definitely a market for it out there.
So let’s take a look at some image samples.
Image quality is lovey with this 50mm 1.2. It’s deinfitely a lens for those who love dreamy shots and shallow depths of field.
But even though it’s a very expensive lens, it's actually not as sharp as I’d probably expect. At f1.2 there’s a noticeble lack of sharpness which is a bit dissapointing, because I want to shoot at this aperture.
But other things are good. Flaring is handled very well and again the booked is just beautifyul.
It's a great lens, but whether it’s worth the price tag I’m not sure, especially if you have to shoot at above f1.2 to get really sharp shots.
- published: 11 Feb 2016
- views: 4369