'L' for 'Legendary'? Canon 50mm f/1.0 'L' USM (1989-2002) lens review with samples

10 months ago
2

A review I've been waiting to make for years. Manufactured between 1989 and 2002, this legendary 'L' lens still commands legendary prices wherever it can be found. It still holds the crown as the brightest aperture autofocus lens ever made, and the brightest aperture SLR lens ever made - yet, it's always had very mixed reviews (most saying that it's rather soft - and those were reviews from the film era). Well, let's see what this copy of the lens can do, at least.

A huge thank you to Park Cameras here in the UK, for their help in loaning me a copy of this lens for a couple of weeks for testing. Check them out:

Web: https://www.parkcameras.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/parkcameras

By the way - I do acknowledge that there's a chance this is not a a great copy of the lens, optically - however, it's very difficult to tell, with so few of them around.

All pictures taken by me on a Canon EOS R camera (and adaptor). By the way, I did do a little sharpness test on my old Canon 6D to make sure that Canon's EF - RF mount adaptor wasn't causing problems with image quality, and the results were what you would expect, so, nothing wrong with the adaptor.

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Equipment I use for making these reviews and other videos:
Equipment I use to make my videos (Amazon affiliate links):
Canon EOS R5: https://geni.us/CanonEOSR5Body
Canon EF-RF Adaptor: https://geni.us/CanonEFtoRF
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 'Art': https://geni.us/Sigma50mm14Art
Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 IS STM: https://geni.us/CanonRF35mm18Macro
Marumi Fit and Slim CPL Filter: https://geni.us/MarumiFitSlim77
AudioTechnica AT2020USB+ Microphone: https://geni.us/AT2020USBPlusMic
Rode Smartlav+ Microphone: https://geni.us/RodeSmartLavalierPlus
Rode SC3 adapter: https://geni.us/RodeSC3MicAdaptor
Zoom H1n Recorder: https://geni.us/ZoomH1nMiniRecorder
DJI Mini 2 Drone: https://geni.us/DJIMini2FlyMore

Music:
'Opportunity Walks', Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

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