THE CANON 50mm f1.2 LENS

A very short review on what f1.2 can do

3 min readDec 13, 2015

I am often asked whether people should stick with their kit/prosumer lenses (which are reasonably priced) or pay the extra $1,000 or so to get a lens that has an aperture of 1.2

Speaking purely from a Canon DSLR perspective, the only true value that I can see from my Canon 50mm f1.2 lens is the dreamy soft focus when shooting flowers. The rest of the time I have to shoot at f2 or f2.8 just to get a sharp picture throughout the entire frame. Since that is the case you can save a lot of money if you purchase a cheaper 50mm lens, but of course there are always trade-offs.

The disappointment that I have experienced with poor “wide-open” DSLR lens performance has led me down the path toward mirror-less solutions. However, I must give the Canon 50mm f1.2 lens credit . . . it produces lovely flower photos when used on a full frame camera body.

All photos in this series were taken with a full frame Canon 5D Mark II a few years ago, in a friend’s Cactus garden during our annual photo workshops.