Canon 50mm f/1.2L USM Lens

This is one of the oldest lenses still in production for Canon. It's somewhat better than all the f/1.8 versions, but not by much. The main issue I have with this lens is it's work on open diaphragm (which is the point of having 1.4 in the first place). It's soft and have lots of CA, it's managable only if you close it down to f/2.4-f/2.8, but you can do that with 1.8 too and they will almost indistingushable from one another. Do you want to pay more for this one? Well, let's break it down. First and foremost we look in the lens is the image quality and auto focus being managable, because without either of these things the rest is kinda pointles. So does it have a good image quality? Well, yes and no. Sharpness: not very good open, but decent on 2.4-2.8. CA: bad while being open, gets better at 2.0 Color: good, actually really good, you can do a lot in post process if you shoot RAW. Bokeh: good. there are really nice looking curvatures of the whole background you can spot, lights turn into beautiful circles, i really enjoy it. it maybe not so creamy as some people prefer, but we get what we pay for. So if you're going to shoot at wide open aperture, sometimes you will have problems with CA and sharpness. But overall I would say that I like how my pictures look, I didn't expect from this lens more, but being able to shoot in low light conditions with 1.4 even with some problems of sharpness is very valuable. With some trees in the background this lens is making a great picture and I recommend it for portraits. So, auto focus. From the factory lens wasn't properly adjusted and I sent it to Canon. It came back working good. But sometimes it still misses a little bit. I would say that 1-3 out of 10 shots can be out of focus. If you shoot wide open, then be careful, I recommend focusing with central point and then reframe your shot. On 1.4 even 5 inches closer can make your subject out of focus so check if it is all the time. I had couple of sessions being really sketchy on the focus department because subject moved a little bit closer-farther all the time and went out of focus really easy. So again, we can't say anything bad without good and vice versa. This is a really mixed lens and it needs to be updated from Canon. The build quality is shoddy. It doesn't feel solid at all, people say it breaks from falling down easily. It extends while focusing which is very bad, because if you drop it while extended, you can almost certainly kiss it goodbuy. Always move the focus to infinity when you're not shooting or transporting it in the bag. It's made from plastic and I don't expect to survive more than 2-5 years depending on your use. People report autofocus breaking all the time and I am not suprised by that. You have to be really careful using it. All in all I am getting what I expected from that lens. You can easily buy 1.8 and save a couple of bucks and not lose much from it. I work in dark sometimes and I need 1.4. Also, I paid more so my clients won't question my professional skills with the cheapest lens available on the market, so it was more of an image buy. I recommend it for careful users who know what they are buying and can deal with some CA and autofocus issues. The image qualiuty is okay and you can produce absolutely wonderful images with this lens, you just have to be alert about it's flaws.