Unfortunately I DO need accurate close focusing. I have just returned my 2nd copy. Maybe I'll try again in a month or so because when this lens does get it right it is awesom. It just doesn't get it right very often at close distances.
ward1066 wrote:
B&H has in stock now, must not be a problem
Yep, OneCall has them as well now. I guess we are all just being too picky about what we expect our $1600 lenses to be able to do.
Everybody knows that this lens is just a lens for collectors and not really for shooting anyway. It's a lens to put in your sig and to pull out to impress your friends. Who cares if it works right.
Exactly. I just put mine on the table and worship it every day. I would use it, but then it might get marks on the mount. Whenever my friends come over, they are required to kiss the table where it rests (but cannot touch or breath upon it). That way I don't even need to care if it works right.
CMOS wrote:
Yep, OneCall has them as well now. I guess we are all just being too picky about what we expect our $1600 lenses to be able to do.
Everybody knows that this lens is just a lens for collectors and not really for shooting anyway. It's a lens to put in your sig and to pull out to impress your friends. Who cares if it works right.
Mines staying at home as well. Other than the cost, I can't think of anything negative to say about this lens.
With that said, I have considered selling it since I really could use the money towards upgrading my system and go back to the 50 1.4 for the time being. But I'm not about to make the mistake of selling a great piece of kit again. I look at shots taken with this lens and they're excellent. It proved to be invaluable during a recent trip to Africa. Hence, it's stays.
So, as promised here's the results comparing AF, camera-assisted MF and focusing with the EC-B focusing screen both "wide-open" and stopped down. All were shot with a 1D MKII, processed in Lightroom with identical settings - ISO 100, 1/250th, 5600K/neutral tint, heavily sharpened to better delineate the DoF and focus area. All tests involve resetting the lens to infinity before focusing.
Auto Focus, One Shot
Camera-Assisted Manual Focus
Split Screen Manual Focus
Split Screen Manual Focus with DoF Preview Engaged during Focusing
Not sure how to interpret the results at this point. This seems to backup William Castleman's claim that focus shift is not the problem. If there was focus shift within the lens, the DoF Preview Engaged image should be more accurate than the wide-open shots, which should show more backfocus, which they didn't.
For what it's worth, I did some practical tests around the house with the split screen and the 50/1.2L. The AF, as usual, is terrible for close headshots, with the consistent back focusing many are seeing. The camera-assisted MF is still bad, and the splitscreen is pretty much impractical since my eyesight is pretty bad (I wear glasses, and haven't changed prescriptions for a while). So, while part of me wants to say "The fact that the AF is screwed up can be offset by using manual focus" - that just won't fly. I'm dependent on AF.
If your eyes are better, the 50/1.2L with the split screen may be the best choice. You can AF for most stuff, then MF for the close stuff.
mine worked great from distances 3' and further. any closer and AF would misfocus. and, exactly like sam showed in his tests, the focus confirmation light was incorrect at close focus. manual focus using the focusing screen was the only way to get accurate focus results from 1.5'~3'.
i'll buy this lens again for sure. i'm just going to give it a while before i do, hoping that canon can find a solution to this AF anomaly.
I shot another Roller Derby event a couple weekends ago with the 50/1.4, 50/1.2L and the 85/1.8. While the 50/1.4 performed quite well (I still haven't had a moment to do a direct comparison between the two since I've been quite sick) I must say I much preferred shooting with the 50/1.2L. I shoot with a 580 mounted to the top and am literally running along with the girls as I'm shooting, and the extra heft of the 50/1.2L makes for a much more stable setup.
the 50/1.2 is definitely a killer lens. mine was ridiculously sharp wide open. the close focus AF issue is a deal-breaker for me though since it'll be used up close 50% of the time and for architecture, interiors, and landscape the other 50%.
who knows, maybe the upcoming 1D3/1Ds3 will work flawlessly with this lens and it'll be a non-issue soon enough.
Nice portrait, Harvey. I've taken some really great portraits with this lens as well.
There was an incident recently when I was just shooting random stuff around the office and and the lens missed focused on a miniature flag I was shooting at close distance. I started to worry a little, but decided not to let the "back focusing paranoia" get to me. Reading these horror stories daily can start playing tricks with your mind. I took several more shots of various objects and it seemed to work fine. I have to remind myself that every lens I've ever owned, even the beloved Holy Trinity 35L, 85L and 135L, have all missed its intended target at some point. I have to treat the 50L the same way. Chalk it up as user error or just a freak occurance that can happen even to the best lenses. Maybe some are experiencing a higher percentage of missed focused shots than others, but I'm on the opposite end of that spectrum.
Believe me, I'm well aware that focus accuracy is all about variation - no lens focuses perfectly every time. But if one lens misfocuses 5 times out of 5 shots, and another lens misfocuses once out of 5 shots in absolutely identical conditions, there's a problem. This unfortunately is the problem with the 50/1.2 in a nutshell. It always misfocuses at close distances when stopped down.
Sam Bennett wrote:
Believe me, I'm well aware that focus accuracy is all about variation - no lens focuses perfectly every time. But if one lens misfocuses 5 times out of 5 shots, and another lens misfocuses once out of 5 shots in absolutely identical conditions, there's a problem. This unfortunately is the problem with the 50/1.2 in a nutshell. It always misfocuses at close distances when stopped down.
They dont all do this. Mine focuses fine on my 5D and on my XT. I have heard the complaint more with 1 series bodies.
Mine did the same thing on my XT. I'm not going to call you a liar, but it does appear that a high number of 50/1.2L are exhibiting this problem - even William Castleman who generally likes the lens has confirmed that his does it as well. It's quite easy to imagine that some people simply don't see the problem because they don't shoot in situations that would show it. If you shoot wide-open most of the time, you're not going to see. If you don't do close up shots, you're not going to see it.
This is precisely why it seemed like such a hit-or-miss issue with me at first - my RollerGirls work was flawless, the first set of photos I shot at a party seemed generally quite good. In the RollerGirls case I didn't see it because they were full-length shots, in the party case I was shooting between f/1.2-f/1.8.
This lens can work extremely well for those who use it in certain conditions. Personally, I'm pretty torn at this point. For the work I bought it for, it works great. But I'm not comfortable knowing, in the back of my mind, that this lens will burn me in the right conditions. So most likely it will be exchanged for a new lens - but I'm guessing that at this point, the results will be the same.
Post of the month right there 
