jonbrach wrote:
responding to Lord-malones's question...would i buy the lens if there was no internet i would say this....i do understand that the internet and pixel peepers seem to find faults that never would have been seen or likely noticed years ago,i grant that...on the other hand the internet if you can sift through the crap and find the good stuff is a great source of information ....many times you will see negative reviews in one place and ignore it because there are tons of positive ones elsewhere...in this case the reviews all seem to be similiar...good but not great,not as good as expected for the price etc....that is my concern in general that there seems to be a consensus forming...Show more →
I respect your input, Jon. However, this forum, and the few who actually posted anything regarding this lens, hardly represents the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Canon shooters worldwide. The only consensus I see forming is the consensus to crucify this lens before anyone has had a chance to evaluate this lens over an extended period of time and post some real world examples other than portraits of their dog, wine bottles or the lens box. Nothing I've read or seen to date has discouraged me from pulling the trigger and ordering one for myself. I purchased the 16-35L regardless of all the negative reviews I've read and found it to be one of the best zoom lenses I've ever owned PERIOD. I'm confident that in time this lens will be regarded in the same league as the holy trinity.
Weekh, the interesting thing about the sharpness is that the 50L appears to soft at 1.2, better at 1.4, softer again at 2.0 and 2.8, a bit better at 4.0, and its best at 5.6. I find that to be off, since the lens performs its poorest at f2.0 - 2.8, which I would have assumed would have been a sweet spot.
Also, the constrast appears to be similarly better along those lines -- for my fast primes, contrast is something that definitely improves stopping down. Not something that goes up, then down, then up.
I'm not disputing that you did multiple tests, but I just find it very odd. What was the focus distance?
It sounds like Canon's prior "L" quality has created expectations for this lens that aren't being met for a number of people, but other people have different expectations. I don't know one way or the other, but this is the reason it's always an individual decision as to whether or not it works for "you" and how you shoot.
For example, the notion that this is an 85mm lens for 1.6x crop factors is interesting. I'm certain if Canon wanted such a lens, they'd make an appropriate EF-S build. But they may never do that since most people use the EF-S 60mm lens for portraits at that length and it works quite well. It's just not super-fast.
But my point is that's how one person would use it, yet other people want it for indoor sporting events and/or wider portraits. Personally, I'm looking for indoor lighting support in the form of fast focusing and consistent AF. My tests won't be scientific, but using it in that situation will give me the information I need to make a decision about the lens for my purposes.
Anyone looking at the lens will eventually need to evaluate it with their needs in mind, regardless of technical reviews -- so long as those reviews don't say "it sucks". And so far, I don't hear anyone saying that. They're just saying it's not the improvement over the f/1.4 they'd expected for 5x the cost.
And that's why a discussion of "value" matters, despite all these repeated posts I always see claiming otherwise. Even for people with infinite resources, there still exists the question of value. And this value comparison is even more important when comparing an "L" lens with its "little sibling", regardless of focal length.
This has historically been the case for Canon lens purchasers, as my opening sentence above indicates. One can readily see what one's money buys them when comparing the 35/f2 with the 35L, the 85/f1.8 with the 85L, etc. This alone created a lot of expectations for the new 50L, but it also needed to compare well with its OLDER sibling -- the original 50L.
How one makes these comparisons is subjective, but with few exceptions people on this forum and others are indicating disappointment with the new 50L -- based upon expectations created by Canon. Unless there are changes/improvements to this new lens, it will probably wind up in the same category as the 16-35L (mixed opinion).
Ultimately, Canon needs to show additional VALUE if they want to sell copies of an "L" lens. If the value isn't obvious, as it is with the 35L and 85L, the focus needs to be on what criteria one can find & use to make a judgement about purchasing a 50L.
For those who have the lens and have the 50/1.4, what criteria lead you to keep the 50L over the 50/f1.4 (or vice-versa)? We've heard a few so far, but it'd be nice to hear others and nice to have all the plusses & minuses in one post or FAQ or something -- rather than having to sift through ~100 pages. :-)
Lord_malone,you may turn out to be correct but my guess is that this lens will be a controversial lens over time...one that some lvoe and some are disappointed by.I think in most cases the "special" lenses are introduced and pretty much everybody agrees that the lens is "special"...from day one there is no real dispute...in this case unless canon reintroduces the lens or makes some sort of adjustment my guess is that this will be one of those lenses will detractors and those who love it..my problem is that many times when somebody buys an expensive lens,or for that matter any expensive item they tend to want to rationalize their purchase and even if they arent entirely pleased they tell themselves the lens is terrific etc....i agree that there arent many lenses out there as of yet and i also agree that in time the lens may turn out to be an excellent lens...all im saying is that a lens like this should not be held out as a disappointment by so many and defended in such defensive ways by others...in my opinion the lens should be sharper ,faster focusing and more accurate focusing than its 50 1.4 brother in no uncertain terms...if my 85L wasnt dramatically better than my 85 1.8 i would disppointed just as i expect a 50 1.2 L to be dramatically better than the 50 1.4
jonbrach wrote:
my problem is that many times when somebody buys an expensive lens,or for that matter any expensive item they tend to want to rationalize their purchase and even if they arent entirely pleased they tell themselves the lens is terrific etc...
I really don't get this, and find it offensive. I like to consider myself a fairly rational person. I do not have endless resources - I'd love to get all the things out of the 50/1.4 that I feel like I can get out of the 50/1.2L and save myself some cash for something else. If it turns out Canon cannot fix the focusing issue, the lens will go back. I probably will not replace it with a 50/1.4, however, since I wasn't happy with the first one I had.
It seems like the most ardent criticisms are coming from people who for the most part don't have a problem with their 50/1.4. I've said it a million times, but... if you love your 50/1.4, I do not see a compelling reason to look twice at the 50/1.2.
My comments come as somebody who has ponied up tons of money for all kinds of expensive lenses and loves using them..and as one who has bought things that didnt measure up and tried to convince myself of its worth despite obvious issues...im not criticizing anybody,im just suggesting that I hoped/hope the lens will be a "special" lens..
I just received my copy of this lens from onecall. It's a "UU1100" date code, meaning Nov. 06 manufacture.(Did the other copies around have Oct date codes? - not sure that that matters anyway.)
I'm away from my PC now, but previewing using the rear LCD on shots at the min. focusing distance at f/1.2, I didn't see any rear/front focusing issues. As others have noted, focusing speed is not particularly fast.
I'll try to post some real world images later today. If anyone has a request for a type of image that would be interesting for you, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Fair warning: I don't have a housecat, so I can't take any housecat photos.
(Just as an aside - onecall was taking preorders for $1450 with free shipping back in Sept. Those of you who have been buying only from B&H really should check them out.)
Sam Bennett wrote:
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.
A few months ago there was a bebate on this forum about the "virtual aperture coefficient" of crop vs. FF, taking into account the perspective & several other aperture/focal length related items. The conclusion in that debate was this: For comparable image properties between crop vs. FF, you need to multiply the aperture figure with the cropping factor.
According to that, a 50 mm f/1.2 lens would correspond a 80 mm f/1.9 lens in a Canon APS-C camera. Or the other way round, you can't match the image properties of 85 mm f/1.2 in FF with any practical lens in a Canon APS-C camera, since a 55 mm f/0.75 lens doesn't exist.
Koivulehto wrote:
A few months ago there was a bebate on this forum about the "virtual aperture coefficient" of crop vs. FF, taking into account the perspective & several other aperture/focal length related items. The conclusion in that debate was this: For comparable image properties between crop vs. FF, you need to multiply the aperture figure with the cropping factor.
I'm well aware of this. But this pertains mostly to DoF, so the comparison would still be interesting. I think a lot of the "special look" of the 85L is simply in the perspective/compression, which is a bit more dramatic than the "normal" look of 50mm.
(Just as an aside - onecall was taking preorders for $1450 with free shipping back in Sept. Those of you who have been buying only from B&H really should check them out.)
Edited by CMOS on Dec 18, 2006 at 01:52 PM GMT
Though I normally buy from B&H, I got mine for $1447.61 from ritzcameragov.com I was able to take advantage of the discount offered to military personnel.
Sam Bennett wrote:
I'm well aware of this. But this pertains mostly to DoF, so the comparison would still be interesting. I think a lot of the "special look" of the 85L is simply in the perspective/compression, which is a bit more dramatic than the "normal" look of 50mm.
Yes, you are right. Even though the wide open aperture would ask for comparison between 50 mm f/1.2 in 1.6x crop & 85 mm f/1.8 in FF, it would make more sense to find the closest similarity between two L lenses, i.e. 50L at f/1.2 and 85L at f/2.
I say "at f/2" instead of "at f/1.8", because the 50 L's f/1.2 is probably closer to f/1.3 - at least that is what I found to be the case with my 85L II.
Koivulehto wrote:
Yes, you are right. Even though the wide open aperture would ask for comparison between 50 mm f/1.2 in 1.6x crop & 85 mm f/1.8 in FF, it would make more sense to find the closest similarity between two L lenses, i.e. 50L at f/1.2 and 85L at f/2.
I think both comparisons are useful. The wide-open "look" of each lens is the ideal (circular) aperture in terms of the ethereal look the 85L is famous for. Stopping the 85L to f/1.8 (or f/2) gives it an unfair advantage to the 50/1.2L in terms of sharpness and a cost to the "etherealness" of its wide open performance.
One of the things that people might find with the 50/1.2 on 1.6 option is that at f/1.2 it may be a great combination since you get "that look" without the additional cost to DoF. I personally am not a fan of the "only one eyebrow in focus" look one tends to end up with tightly shot 85/1.2 portraits - so the 50/1.2L is a bit more forgiving in this regard with the right body.
lord_malone wrote:
Though I normally buy from B&H, I got mine for $1447.61 from ritzcameragov.com I was able to take advantage of the discount offered to military personnel.
