weekh wrote:
Fast L lens may not necessary be better. The previous f1.0 L lens is only good for its fast aperture and bokeh. Sharpness and other properties have nothing to sing about.
Suggestions to improve the test are welcome. Just received the lens about 24 hours ago. Looking forward to use the lens for actual shooting.
After seeing the sharpness, I've all but lost interest, but a good bokeh test might be to find a coffee shop, with a friend and do some portraits, wide open, with an interesting background of shapes and colors. If you focus at or near the closest focusing distance, like doing head shots, then that would really throw the background out of focus and give us an idea of what the lens does, for what I think it was really intended for - portraiture. Thanks again for the test.
weekh wrote: I've almost completed my testing comparing the L lens and the f1.4.
Thank you very much for the tests. Very important to me. I am certain though that some would say now that the bokeh is the most important quality of the lens and sharpness is at the end of the list.
I was sort of under the impression that this lens was mainly designed for the crop body people, so they would have a 80 1.2 portrait lens. If that is the case, then I think it should at least try to emulate the 85L lens, which is sharp wide open and has excellent bokeh. I really can't think of any instance where good bokeh was wanted, with a fuzzy subject. I'm not saying there aren't any, I just can't think of any right now. I want the eyes to pop with sharpness and the background to blur into 85 Lness, or in this case 50 Lness, but I think we might have an illness instead, with the 50 L.
cactusclay wrote:
I was sort of under the impression that this lens was mainly designed for the crop body people, so they would have a 80 1.2 portrait lens.
I don't see this as being the case at all. If it were, it wouldn't be an L and it wouldn't be weather sealed. To me it seems like Canon set out to make a lens that could be the defacto 50mm prime for professional photographers, including pros who may end up in extremely dusty or rainy conditions.
You might be right Sam, but don't you think it should be as sharp as it's little brother/sister, at least? My 85L was as sharp as my 85/1.8 and my 35L was as sharp as my 35/2.
cactusclay wrote:
You might be right Sam, but don't you think it should be as sharp as it's little brother/sister, at least? My 85L was as sharp as my 85/1.8 and my 35L was as sharp as my 35/2.
It is as sharp as it's little brother - as William has shown, it's sharper. The only area which the 50/1.4 is sharper is between f/2.8-5.6. As William stated, at this point the differences in sharpness are negligible to the human eye in prints. The lens has it where it counts, near the wide-end of the spectrum, and that's also where the bokeh is much better due to the curved aperture blades.
But again, sharpness isn't everything. The 50/1.4 is pretty dang sharp already, especially once stopped down a little.
i think canon would have been better off and so would we as photographers if they had just brought out an improved version of the f1.4 ie. better build, ring usm, better af at 1.4. etc...As it is, all canon's 50mm lenses leave something to be desired which is a bit of a joke.
Sam Bennett wrote:
It is as sharp as it's little brother - as William has shown, it's sharper. The only area which the 50/1.4 is sharper is between f/2.8-5.6. As William stated, at this point the differences in sharpness are negligible to the human eye in prints. The lens has it where it counts, near the wide-end of the spectrum, and that's also where the bokeh is much better due to the curved aperture blades.
But again, sharpness isn't everything. The 50/1.4 is pretty dang sharp already, especially once stopped down a little.
There seems to be some difference between William's test and weekh's as far as sharpness goes, don't you think?
Sam Bennett wrote:
But again, sharpness isn't everything.
If it were, why would the 50 1.0 still command in excess of $3,500
I would like to personally thank you for hanging in this thread despite the barrage of negative judgements be thrown about, especially by people who don't even own the lens yet...It is really hard to decide what to do if one tries to base a buying decison off this discussion....I think I am going to wait to see what happens if anything from Canon...ie: sub-par first production run, ect.
cactusclay wrote:
There seems to be some difference between William's test and weekh's as far as sharpness goes, don't you think?
To be honest, I don't really care about weekh's tests. William's tests are the best around, I almost have more faith in his tests than I have in my own.
There seems to be some difference between William's test and weekh's as far as sharpness goes, don't you think?
I would be most pleased if someone can prove that the copy I'm having is a bad one (it is not mine anyway ). I really would love to have a good f1.2 50mm lens!
On another note, I find my copy of the f1.4 a very good lens. Very sharp even at wide open. I've compared it against the Contax Carl Zeiss Planar 50 f1.7 and f1.4 and find it to be as good as the zeiss lenses. Canon ef 1.4, together with the Zeiss, are among the very best 50mm glasses. I find the zeiss to have a slightly better bokeh than the Canon. So I read with surprise when someone commended that their Canon f1.4 are not good. It is likely that there are variations among copies of the Canon lenses.
rockitman wrote:
If it were, why would the 50 1.0 still command in excess of $3,500
I would like to personally thank you for hanging in this thread despite the barrage of negative judgements be thrown about, especially by people who don't even own the lens yet...It is really hard to decide what to do if one tries to base a buying decison off this discussion....I think I am going to wait to see what happens if anything from Canon...ie: sub-par first production run, ect.
Thanks again for sharing your insights....
Don't get me wrong, I'm not throwing about any negative judgements out of the blue and I'm not trying to attack anyone, just looking at pictures that are posted and trying to make a rational decision about getting one myself. I wish we could get a Canon spokesman on here, so we could ask them directly if this is how it's supposed to be or if there is something amiss, then we wouldn't have have wonder anymore.
cactusclay wrote:
I wish we could get a Canon spokesman on here, so we could ask them directly if this is how it's supposed to be or if there is something amiss, then we wouldn't have have wonder anymore.
Wouldn't that be great. It would makes buying decisions so much easier...
cactusclay wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not throwing about any negative judgements out of the blue and I'm not trying to attack anyone, just looking at pictures that are posted and trying to make a rational decision about getting one myself. I wish we could get a Canon spokesman on here, so we could ask them directly if this is how it's supposed to be or if there is something amiss, then we wouldn't have have wonder anymore.
No sweat, Clay. It's just frustrating for everything to come back to sharpness. It's important, but it's not the only criteria. The color rendition and bokeh alone on this lens are excellent. I personally am unconcerned about sharpness at f/1.2 because other issues inherent to current sensor designs (birefringence) mean that I can't realistically use the lens there for what I do anyway. But again, William Castleman's test results show the lens is sharper at wide apertures, has lower flare resistance (weekh's flare test is unrealistic) and better bokeh.
I am disappointed by this whole situation..I had planned to buy the 50 1.2 assuming it was something special and so far it seems it is not.I recognize that there are many variables involved but if a 1600 dollar lens isn't obviously sharper than a 300 dollar lens and doesnt AF faster and more accurately something is wrong.Im ready to see different tests and reviews or to find out that there was a bad first batch of the lens...perhaps that is why it is so hard to find?...but i cannot accept that canon decided to put out such a lens and not have it be special..so far,a disappointment
There's nothing less "special" than a 50mm lens, which I think is part of the problem here. So many people expecting it to be an 85L. Well, it's not 85mm lens. You're not going to get the compressed FoV and the subsequent focus on the subject and further (subjective) blurring of the background, etc. An 85L is always going to look more "special" simply because of the focal length.
And interesting test would be the 85L on a FF camera vs. the 50L on a 1.6.
Wow. I already sent my 50 F1.4 into Canon service for calibration. Last night I really though I could see the difference between my 50L and the 50 F1.4 on the 5D's LCD. Right now I am looking at 50L images (exposed at F1.8) that compare directly with my excellent 135L (@ F2.0) which is my sharpest lens.
Those that compare these lenses above F2.8 may realize that this lens must have been designed for large apeture work otherwise why has the F1.4 carried the 50mm "Normal Lens" standard in Canon's line up for so long?
Sam Bennett wrote:
You guys are funny. Dismissing the 50/1.2 with it's 5 times higher price because it's not 5 times sharper than the 50/1.4 wide-open is like dismissing the 1D MKII because it doesn't have image quality 5 times better than the XT.
Thanks again for the test.
). I really would love to have a good f1.2 50mm lens!