jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (05/17/85)
About a week ago, I asked if anyone had any information on the Canon "L"
lenses, and said I would post the responses. Thank you to everyone who
responded to my question. Unfortunately, no one who replied had any
firsthand experience with the "L" lens*; but there were many helpful comments
anyway. Here is the promised summary.
(* There were several people who misunderstood the question somewhat; I
had not worded as clearly as I should have, and you had to know some details
of the Canon naming scheme to understand the question as a result. The
"L" lenses are lenses which use aspheric elements, fluorite elements, or
other methods in order to achieve "better" quality than regular lenses.
The only 50mm lens available from canon in the "L" is the 1.2 lens (also,
it is the only L lens that is not priced way up in the $600-$6000 range)).
Responses follow.
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Are you sure there isn't something wrong with the 1.8? Canon
lenses should be quite sharp. I used to have an old-style 1.8
(breech-mount) and just for grins I made a print with an Omega
4x5 enlarger cranked all the way up, and the print was still
very sharp. (tri-x)
If you believe the sample pictures in the lens book, the 1.2L
is a lot better lens than the 1.2 non-L lens is. But then this
book was before they went to the stupid bayonet mounts.
There should be test results available done by the photo mags,
with hard numbers you could compare.
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Why not go with the 1.4 lens and save yourself even more money? A 1.4
will be much sharper than a 1.2.
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The present state of photographic technology is that f/1.8 lenses
are easy to make and f/1.2 lenses are very difficult. Even the best ones
will be no sharper than an everyday f/1.8, so if it's sharpness you're after,
pick the best f/1.8 you can find.
If you must have a 1.2, of course, that's a different story. There's only
one way to find out if the L lens is worth the extra $110, and that's to
test it (or find someone who has, or find a published test). Obviously
the difference is worth the money to SOME PEOPLE, but there are many possible
differences.
I would expect the bulk of the difference, if any, to be at wider apertures.
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The Canon 1.4 is very good, and the the 1.2 isn't really that much faster.
Are you going to be doing enough low light shooting that the 1/2 stop will
make a difference? I would take the difference between the 1.2 (with or
without the "L") and buy a lot of film.
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I did notice some difference between f8 and f4.5 on my zukio lens - but it
was only the regular (not series 1) vivtar lens that I found really poor
images. Actually my zukio 1.8 lens is not as sharp as my 90mm 2.3 vivtar
series 1.
Thank you again for your responses.
--
Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos
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