I finally own the Canon EF 50mm f/1.0L lens. It's a lens I have wanted for a long time, but I had a hard time justifying the investment required to own a lens that is less than perfect. It's not the sharpest, it doesn't autofocus all that quickly and Canon no longer services it, yet I still wanted to own one because it's so unique and produces a wonderful image in the right circumstances.
This lens was introduced in 1989 and has since gone up significantly in value. You can see these lens retail for more than $4000 on the used market.
Description
“An ultra-fast standard lens with the largest aperture for SLR lenses in the world at the time. Two large-diameter ground and polished glass aspherical lens elements (3rd & 8th) provide high-contrast with low-flare image quality even at maximum aperture. Curvature of field is minimized through use of four high-refraction glass elements. Spherical aberration and curvature of field at close focusing distance are minimized by floating mechanism. A ring USM (Ultrasonic Motor) achieves silent, high-speed AF and full-time manual focusing.” Read more at the Canon Museum
This is a lens that still gets talked about a lot. Likely because it's so unique and there's something about that nice and clean f/1.0 number and the dreamy bokeh it produces. I am going to try and do a review of the lens for fun, but it will require me actually getting good images with it. No brick walls or cats (I don't have cat)!
cr