After disappointment with the Canon 50mm 1.2, I sought a lens that would bring me joy, not frustration. While I have the 50mm 1.8, and it is perfectly sharp, its bokeh drives me crazy (not in a good way). My ideal lens is super-fast, low macro contrast, high micro contrast, saturated colors and good/neutral bokeh.

In the Canon 50mm 1.0L I have found a close match and the lens is truly a joy to use. I haven't used the 50mn FOV for so long it is like a revelation, seeing the world in a new way much like the feelings with my first macro and tilt-shift lenses.

The lens is much maligned and that's why I initially opted for the Canon 50mm 1.2. The focus is a touch faster than the 85mm 1.2L. Vignetting is heavy in many circumstances. The lens flares easily shooting into the sun with multitudinous little red splats. And the lens is not as sharp as my old Tamron 28-75mm which is intolerable to any Canon fanboy.

On the plus side, focus is slow but perfect! At ALL apertures. The color is phenomenal, although reds tend to oversaturate (perhaps sensor). With a polarizer, the lens has cartoonish Velvia saturation straight out of camera. It is FAST. I shoot ISO 100 95% of the time and this is a boon. I did some candid party photos where the lighting for the entire room was probably equivalent to one 40W. This lens is sharper than any other lens at f/1.0. It's actually not that heavy, it's solid and balances nicely. Squat and thick and I like it. Images have a vintage quality to them, which I quite enjoy. Heavy vignetting and low contrast.

On to the photos:

Detail - Center sharpness at f/1.0 is more than adequate. The 1.0L is sharper than the 50mm 1.2 from 1.2-2.0. 100% crop, wide open, LIGHTLY sharpened.

Thank you for the review. Heh, an opposite to a preview in this case...

When I had my 5D I would very much have enjoyed to try the EF50/1.0. But the prohibitive prices together with the fact (?) that Canon doesn't support the lens any more made me go for alternate options instead.

The 50/1.0 has a certain own way of drawing the pictures and I can imagine I would have no problems living with it.

Very fine portrait (and I enjoyed the two above it also). I see why you like the lens. Thanks for being honest in your description of flare, etc. I happen to like the 1.2L for my uses, but for you the 1.0 is clearly better, and worth the cost. Enjoy it!

Jonas B wrote:
Thank you for the review. Heh, an opposite to a preview in this case...

When I had my 5D I would very much have enjoyed to try the EF50/1.0. But the prohibitive prices together with the fact (?) that Canon doesn't support the lens any more made me go for alternate options instead.

The 50/1.0 has a certain own way of drawing the pictures and I can imagine I would have no problems living with it.

There is a richness, a creaminess in its rendering. It's very soft in tone and I really enjoy it. I've been looking at some excellent Noctilux photos on Flikr and the lens signature difference is amazing. I think the Noctilux is very bold, the Canon is very subdued. For this, perhaps it is dismissed.

Photon wrote:
Very fine portrait (and I enjoyed the two above it also). I see why you like the lens. Thanks for being honest in your description of flare, etc. I happen to like the 1.2L for my uses, but for you the 1.0 is clearly better, and worth the cost. Enjoy it!

This lens definitely has weaknesses. Price being high on the list. I think it's a question of each photographer finding the brush that suits individual tastes. That's why I posted in the alternative lens forum, individual tastes is the raison d'etre of this forum. The look will not appeal to everyone, especially those who prefer the snappy, high contrast of the Canon 50mm 1.2 or any Zeiss lens.

I see a soft lens with distracting rings and hotspots in the middle of the bokeh highlights

Definitely a 'signature' - and acquiring lenses with unique rendering abilities is certainly a fun pursuit - but i question the return on investment with this particular lens.

I have to ask though, considering the price, you can find others that play the (almost as)fast game much better (subjective), while leaving a lot of $$$ for many other additional alternate adventures.

Great portrait, btw

All that said, if someone walked up to me and said 'Do you want an EF 50mm f1.0L lens for free?' i'd say 'YES!'

It is not soft. It actually resolves quite a bit of detail, wide open, as can be seen in the photo of the tree branches. It is very low contrast.

So which 50mm is much better?

The Zeiss 50mm ZF has spherical aberration wide open and does not open to f/1.0.

The Canon 50mm f/1.2 has focusing issues, not as sharp wide open, does not open to f/1.0 and has stronger bokeh rings

The Noctilux is more expensive, no AF, and looks to be of comparable if not inferior sharpness and heavier vignetting.

Trying to find a 50mm lens that suits my taste was not a fun pursuit. It was acutally quite frustrating. AF is important to me. I have poor MF skills and shoot non-static people for a living.

Lastly, the bokeh is quire excellent. Since the Canon 50mm 1.2 was either out of focus or shot wide open, I have many samples of its highlight rendition. With uniform midtones, it smooths out the background quite well, but strong highlights have more prominent rings than the original 50L The 85mm 1.2L has highlight circles and hotspots as well. As does the Zeiss 85mm 1.4 ZF. The only lens that does not have those circles is the Minolta 135mm STF. Having shot extensively with the 70-200 f/2.8, 200mm f/1.8, and 85mm f/1.2, I can say that in comparison the 50mm f/1.0L bokeh is excellent in many situations and good-neutral with challenging highlights. If the lenses I mentioned do not have good bokeh, then I would like to know what lenses you consider to have good bokeh.

I am not in the habit of posting unfinished work especially focus problems - but as an example: 50mm 1.2 wide open - crazy focus (and no I was not using the 1d mk iii). Unprocessed in any way. Totally different lens signature, much contrastier.

adamM wrote:
I see a soft lens with distracting rings and hotspots in the middle of the bokeh highlights

Definitely a 'signature' - and acquiring lenses with unique rendering abilities is certainly a fun pursuit - but i question the return on investment with this particular lens.

I have to ask though, considering the price, you can find others that play the (almost as)fast game much better (subjective), while leaving a lot of $$$ for many other additional alternate adventures.

Great portrait, btw

All that said, if someone walked up to me and said 'Do you want an EF 50mm f1.0L lens for free?' i'd say 'YES!'

The tree branch shot doesn't really come across as sharp to me.. but without seeing it next to other lenses, it's hard to say.

Since the 50mm f1.0L is such a slow focuser, you have to ask if manual focus + AF confirm isn't a reasonable alternative. For those who grew up shooting on MF, i bet many would prefer MF over a really slow AF. I know i would.

I'd hazard to say the Minolta Rokkor 58mm f1.2 blows the doors off the 50mm f1.0L in terms of sharpness, contrast, CA, flare and bokeh. I know, it's one stop slower and 8mm longer... Not a direct comparison, and i think herein lies the point: There is no direct comparison ! The 1.0L is an utterly unique lens. A direct comparison cannot be made. However, my angle is that there are compromises at the bleeding edge; performance, price, which make it questionable (to me) to own, over a number of 'almost' equivalents.

So much of this is subjective. I'd much rather take my Rokkor or a couple of 50mm f1.4's over the 1.0L for 'better' bokeh, with understandably different DOF characteristics. I don't mind manually focusing, and realize that not everyone shares this thought.

With the recent improvements in DSLR high ISO performance, fast lenses aren't so much employed as much for 'getting the shot' as they used to be, and are more for their bokeh abilities. Slow AF, doughnut bokeh and a high price-tag are three pretty major compromises for that last stop of performance, which doesn't pay the bills like it used to with crappy 400 iso film.

Isn't photography cool? Such an interesting mix of logic and art, technology and creativity. If you love that lens, it's all that matters.

One of a kind lens, thank you for sharing . I guess I should also browse Nikon forums more often to see if a user review of Nikkor Noct pops up for comparison.

When it comes to a search for lowlight lenses in the standard range, I agree the bokeh is one of the most discernable feature to ask for, outside sharpness and color signature. And your experience with the 50/1L seems like a revelation.

Is CA bad wide open? Especially with 100% crops? I'm not sure if that's purple fringing in the 1st tree branches shot and a hint around the lamp edges in the bokeh shot.

adamM wrote:
The tree branch shot doesn't really come across as sharp to me.. but without seeing it next to other lenses, it's hard to say.

Since the 50mm f1.0L is such a slow focuser, you have to ask if manual focus + AF confirm isn't a reasonable alternative. For those who grew up shooting on MF, i bet many would prefer MF over a really slow AF. I know i would.

I'd hazard to say the Minolta Rokkor 58mm f1.2 blows the doors off the 50mm f1.0L in terms of sharpness, contrast, CA, flare and bokeh. I know, it's one stop slower and 8mm longer... Not a direct comparison, and i think herein lies the point: There is no direct comparison ! The 1.0L is an utterly unique lens. A direct comparison cannot be made. However, my angle is that there are compromises at the bleeding edge; performance, price, which make it questionable (to me) to own, over a number of 'almost' equivalents.

So much of this is subjective. I'd much rather take my Rokkor or a couple of 50mm f1.4's over the 1.0L for 'better' bokeh, with understandably different DOF characteristics. I don't mind manually focusing, and realize that not everyone shares this thought.

With the recent improvements in DSLR high ISO performance, fast lenses aren't so much employed as much for 'getting the shot' as they used to be, and are more for their bokeh abilities. Slow AF, doughnut bokeh and a high price-tag are three pretty major compromises for that last stop of performance, which doesn't pay the bills like it used to with crappy 400 iso film.

Isn't photography cool? Such an interesting mix of logic and art, technology and creativity. If you love that lens, it's all that matters.


I've never used the rokkor and cannot comment, but if someone in the NYC area has one, we can shoot together. I'd like to see the rokkor handle challenging highlights. I'm not talking about a few twinkly LED lights, or a flower with some twigs behind it, I'm talking about sharply glinting metal, blown out highlights through tree branches, high contrast.

The 50Ls, 85L, 200L and 70-200L are all considered to have good bokeh, and yet all have the "donut" bokeh that you find objectionable. The Noctilux is 5+K USD, and has a vortex like bokeh. The 50L is not a good value, the Tamron 28-75 is a good value. But you need the tools you need. Your 70-200 IS is very expensive, especially in Australia.

My colleague has 35K of Leica equipment, 2 film bodies and a handfull of lenses, everything is relative.

And as for high ISO, I shoot ISO 100 95% of the time. I prefer fast lenses over high ISO.

Leon Noel wrote:
One of a kind lens, thank you for sharing . I guess I should also browse Nikon forums more often to see if a user review of Nikkor Noct pops up for comparison.

When it comes to a search for lowlight lenses in the standard range, I agree the bokeh is one of the most discernable feature to ask for, outside sharpness and color signature. And your experience with the 50/1L seems like a revelation.

Is CA bad wide open? Especially with 100% crops? I'm not sure if that's purple fringing in the 1st tree branches shot and a hint around the lamp edges in the bokeh shot.

I've been shooting wide open almost exclusively and I can say conclusively, it varies. CA ranges from negligible to bad. I did not do any CA correction in the branches. Bad CA occurs when the dynamic range of the sensor is exceeded drastically. When I shot in Grand Central Station at f/1.0 and 1/40s to lift the shadows, the window panes purpled. If the exposure is within range, then CA can be non-existent to 3 pixels. Heavily contrasty blown highlights lead to bad CA of 5-7 pixels.

pookipichu wrote:
I'd like to see the rokkor handle challenging highlights. I'm not talking about a few twinkly LED lights, or a flower with some twigs behind it, I'm talking about sharply glinting metal, blown out highlights through tree branches, high contrast.

Great test metric. When i can scrape a few minutes together, i'll try just that.

Cheers,
/A

Your results from the Canon 50/1.0 look great considering the aperture. If you want to include 58mm lenses, and cost is not a major concern, there is the Noct-Nikkor 58/1.2.

Edited by pdmphoto on Feb 24, 2008 at 10:55 PM GMT

CA wide open is on par with a 85L and depends on the scene - degrees of light vs dark, shiny bright spots like reflections off chrome, etc. The difference in the DOF and bokeh is very slim between F1.0 to F1.4, I generally shoot the 50L @ F1.4 to F2.0. At that point CA is a non-issue.

Check out this POTN thread here -- http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=459887&page=2 post #29

Congrats pookipichu on your 50/1.0 L. Like Photon I'm satisfied with my 50/1.2 L and judging from your tree sample I conclude my 50/1.2 L to be a bit sharper wide open, but sharpness is not everything. I just don't get what happening with Canon's quality control, every other 50/1.2 seems faulty. A friend of mine had a 50/1.2 that backfocused a whooping 16cm (6.5 inches). Mine seems to be ok. I get slightly OOF images time to time but it's probably me moving too much during recompose. It seems to perform better with the 1DsII than the 5D.

I'm surprised to see how different these lenses are from dfindr's images. One would think they would be similar but are quite different. I would like to see someone compare all the ultrafast 50's (1.0-1.2). Most of these tests seem to be of bills, charts and treebranches. I would like to see some real world comparisons too, a natural light portrait and in studio.