gdanmitchell Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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One does not have to own every lens to comment in ways that are useful and valid. Sometimes the question is based more on principles concerning how lenses with certain features are best used. For example, a person who does not own a fisheye lens can certainly comment on the usefulness or not of such a lens. A person who does not own a tilt/shift lens may understand very well how they work and the circumstances in which they may or may not be useful.
Sometimes the decision to not own a lens was based on a great deal of investigation and careful thought - and a person who chose to get something else may well have done so because of their careful investigation. (And, in a general sense, the notion that we can only know meaningful things about items we own is nonsensical in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure you can think of plenty of examples of things you don't own about which you are knowledgable.)
In addition, it seems to me that a number of you (who I presume may own the lens or desire it) are missing the point of my post. I did not insult the quality of the 50mm f/1.2 L, nor was that my point. In fact, I acknowledged that it is a fine lens that could be the right tool for some small subset of people who need a 50mm prime and desire is specialized performance features.
My point was - and it is hard to see how I could have made this more clear - that such a lens is unlikely to be the best choice for the vast majority of people considering a 50mm prime - and especially that those who are thinking they need it because "it is an L lens so it must be better than the alternatives" should look much more carefully at their real needs and the actual performance of lenses when it comes to those needs. (It probably also wouldn't hurt to look around and notice the number of excellent photographers using 50mm primes who choose other lenses.)
In the specific context of this thread, it is always good to remember what the question was and its context. Here it was - and still is, according to the thread title - "How much extra light?" The answer to that question might be: "A half a stop or so."
Dan
melcat wrote:
Dan, do you or have you owned the lens? There's a lot of false things posted about it, and it does happen to perform very well at f/8 and moderate distances. Given its focal length, I call it fairly general purpose, admittedly not as much as a normal zoom, but serviceable.
I won't presume to comment on the f/1.4 because I don't own it, but I do know it's not weather-sealed and I have shot in rainstorms with the f/1.2. Those shots look significantly different because I took them and I wouldn't have risked a non-weather-sealed lens doing it. I have no other EF lens at that focal length.
My reasons for buying it were very simple: (1) I've had very bad experiences with f/1.4 lenses from other makers, and have no reason to assume Canon's is any better, (2) I don't use any other lens that takes 58mm filters but I do have a nice 72mm C-POL, and (3) I don't like stuff that breaks.
There is just about no circumstance in which I would consider the extra speed of the lens in itself important. The lack of "halation" wide open does, however, make it much easier to manually focus wide open than f/1.4 lenses I've used for other camera systems in the past.
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