On the list of Canon products set for announcement, the new Canon 50mm f/1.2L USM is one special lens. This will be the first 50mm in years to be designated an “L” after the discontinued 50mm f/1.0L, Canon’s mark of excellence for its lenses. The f/1.4 and f/1.8 version of the 50mm has long been available but neither has been perfect, so the clamor for a 50mm L never died.
This new lens will have a ring–type USM providing accurate and silent autofocus performance, and at the same time allowing for full–time manual focus override, negating the need for toggling an AF/MF switch when the need for manual focus suddenly arises.
One possible drawback for this lens could be price. If you recall the recently new 85mm f/1.2L USM MkII, what used to be a 1500 USD lens crossed the 2000 USD barrier after being revised. We could see the 50L above the 1000 USD point, making it not too affordable for everyone. If they sell it at slightly above twice the price of the 50mm f/1.4, it will still be in the 750-900 USD range — fairly affordable. They should sell it at that price and see it fly like hotcakes, like the 17-40 f/4L which happens to be in the same price range.
6 replies on “Canon 50mm f/1.2L USM”
I am very excited about this lens. A very beautiful, and very functional 50mm professional lens. I wish it was under 700 dollars however.
This will be a very good lens though I’m sure it will sell above the 1000-dollar mark.
[…] Just how good is the recently announced Canon 50mm f/1.2L USM? Filipino photographer Randy Tamayo was lucky enough to play with the Canon EOS 400D with the new Canon 50mm wonder lens attached during the consumer body’s Philippine launch two days ago. He comments how the new lens manages to take a backlit photo in low light and produce a good image without flare, as shown above. Looking at how hot those lights are behind the subject, I guess the lens was designed very well, reducing lens flare to a minimum. Contrast is still very good, something I don’t think the nifty–fifty (50mm f/1.8) can produce in the same lighting situation. We were able to get permission to share resized versions of his shots, and we have them below, linked to 500 X 700 pixels images. […]
[…] We recently wrote about the new Canon 50mm f/1.2L USM and we were fortunate enough to come across a fellow Filipino photographer who managed to shoot with the lens just recently. Since our readers have requested for full size crops or samples of the images, Randy Tamayo sent us original files of two of the photos we featured in our earlier post. Click on the thumbnails for the full size image: […]
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