I currently use a Canon 50/1.4 and am happy with it. But I am looking forward to trying the 50L 1.2 one day. The photos I've seen from it are indeed special, it strikes me that this lens is for those who want a certain feel to their photos, a unique quality that can't be delivered from just any lens. There are many 'sharp' lenses out there, but there are few than can take a photo which you can actually identify which lens was used. Not every photo taken with a 50L can be identified as such, obviously, but there are photos I've seen that have a quality which can be identified as having been taken with this lens (and such can be said for the 85L, as well as certain other lenses made by Lieca, Carl Zeiss and perhaps a few others). This quality from these images isn't something that can be measured on a graph, but only by the eye of the beholder. I've seen enough such images to convince me there is something special in these lenses, and while you can still take wonderful photos with other lenses, you can't take the exact same photo as you could with a lens like the 50L unless you use the 50L in such a way that you take advantage of it's unique qualities. It's not a general purpose lens, seems to me, the 50/1.4 would be better suited to that. But if you want to explore your creative potential with a single lens, the 50L is probably one of the better choices, seems to me.