Over the weekend I got the box in the mail. Looking at the B&H Logo tape I could tell my new beauty was inside, along with a crystal clear German made UV filter. I gently opened the box and unveiled my new sweetie, my new girl, the Canon 50mm 1.2 L Series Prime Lens. This lens is special for a couple reasons but many don’t buy it for one reason…..it’s pretty darn expensive compared to the Canon 50mm 1.4 lens. I owned the 50 1.4 for about three years but finally decided to let it go and go for this bad girl. Why? Because at this point in my photographic career I can tell the difference in sharpness, color, focusing speed, focusing accuracy, and weather sealing which, makes this $1,500 lens worth it to me compared to its $350 cousin, which is almost as good!
The 50mm focal length is considered “normal” because it is close to the focal length that the human eye sees. It is not too wide, nor too narrow so it has a wide variety of uses for 2/3rds body shots and waist up group shots with 3-5 people. It is completely smooth, silent, fast focusing, and feels very comfortable in the hands. It can go down to a very wide aperture of 1.2, meaning I can literally shoot in the dark when all my other lenses would not even be able to see anything. However, like all lenses, they are rarely the best performers wide open, so this lens will be best around 2.0 where the sharpness and detail really shines.
It just so happened my model friend Jessa wanted to update her portfolio with some new images. She seems to change her hair color quite often etc so I thought we would take some pics and try out the new lens. I mounted the new baby on my Canon 5D Mark II and we had some fun testing this new fine optic in my studio.
Below are some of our favorites and I did some basic color correction when needs and some skin smoothing etc. What I noticed when importing these photos is that the 50mm 1.2 is in fact the “sharpest lens I now own”. No zoom or other prime lens can touch it when it comes to sharpness. Granted, I did not shoot any of these photos wide open at 1.2, but at apertures like 5.6, 6.3, and 7 this lens is sharp as a tack. It also has amazing speed to get focus and most of the time, stay in focus while I release the shutter. I still wish the focusing was faster, but I blame the slow Canon 5D Mark II for that. I am sure if I had a Mark IV it would be blazing fast!
Also, the colors to me appeared to be more true to life, and less color correction for white balance was needed. In the studio I mainly set my white balance to the daylight setting and on auto for everything else. I always control my shutter and aperture manually and it was wonderful to see what shallow depth of field this lens can do. Almost looks like a tilt shift sometimes, which is super trendy these days in wedding photography for the dreamlike effect it gives.
Even though I have only shot with the Canon 50mm 1.2 lens once so far, I think it was an excellent buy and a much needed addition to my lens arsenal. I will have to update my post “Best Canon Lenses for Wedding Photography” soon since I think it is a must have for all wedding and portrait photographers who want to deliver the best possible images they can. This tool is definitely worth it!
