How rare is the Canon .95 50mm lens?

[andreas_holmstr_m]

As the subject hints, I wonder how rare this lens is`?

 

Anybody here actually using one? How much do they normally cost?

[alvin_hear]

<p>See this <a href="http://members.aol.com/dcolucci/can.htm">Canon RF Price and Information Guide</a>

[mark u]

Nicholas Camera in Camden High Street, London have a Canon 7 body with the f/0.95 lens on offer for UKP 995 currently (they are offering other bodies at UKP225-495). I think I've seen another one on offer recently, but I don't remember the price.

[pico]

Not very rare, really. They pop up on that auction site all the time. Note that there were two,

one was branded for Canon's & cameras and another for TV.

 

I used one in the late sixties for urban news photography. Soft, but fast.

 

Someone else will have to advise on mounting one on a Leica. I look forward to learning if it

is a straightforward modification or whether it's very complicated by RF coupling.

[vincenzo_maielli]

Hi, Andreas. The Canon RF 50 mm f/ 0,95 is quite rare but not impossible to find. For the actual standard, the optical quality is not so good as the modern fast lenses.

Ciao.

[vivek iyer]

Complicated RF coupling for Leica screw, Pico. I have seen only one example where the rear lens element was not cut up to make the RF coupling prong. M-mount RF coupling appears more feasible. I might do that to my 50/0.95 TV-lens one of these days.

[peter_keating1]

Exercise due caution when dealing with that UK dealer just mentioned.

[stephen_w.]

This guy shoots with the lens. If interested, I think it's better you than me doing the search:

 

http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=1461692

[SCL]

Not particularly rare. I used one for a year after having it modified for my M4, then sold it in late 2005 for a little over $700. Broke even on the deal after factoring in the cost of the mod, which was performed by Steve Gandy at Photography on Bald Mountain. Interesting lens but really big and heavy. I much prefer a Noctilux.

[peter_evans4]

Mmm, Gandy gets around. Last time I heard, he was at Cameraquest.

[roger_michel]

the canon 1.2 is the lens you want for actual use. the T stop is very close on the two lenses

and the 1.2 is very sharp and relatively compact. the .95, part of the "canon dream," is much

softer at all apertures.

[pico]

Gandy's site is a great resource.

 

Vivek, good luck on the modification. I hope you can make it work with the rangefinder.

The .95 I used in a Canon 7 for those very difficult night shots during the Chicago chaos in

the late sixties, early seventies. The virtue of it was the way it threw light into midranges

and shadows when shot wide open - rather like a false contrast compensation. The things

we did to make available darkness photos... whew.

 

I spend a minute every day rationalizing away getting a Noctilux. :) If you sum all those

minutes over forty years against my income I'm still ahead!

[35mmdelux]

Let me put it this way - the Canon .95 makes the 35mm/1.4 Lux Pre-asph look Super Duper sharp.

[vivek iyer]

"The virtue of it was the way it threw light into midranges and shadows when shot wide open - rather like a false contrast compensation."

 

That is a gem, Pico! Most of the time, most folks, do not look at the contribution of contrast towards apparent sharpness. The contrast variation that you succinctly describe is easily taken care of by choice of film/light or in the post processing.

[pico]

<i>That is a gem, Pico! Most of the time, most folks, do not look at the contribution of contrast towards apparent sharpness. The contrast variation that you succinctly describe is easily taken care of by choice of film/light or in the post processing.</i><p>

Yeah, yeah, easy for you to say. You weren't there. I can see a guy in a riot with his spotmeter and Zone System notebook now, "Humm, 4 seconds at F.95" with a screaming hippie or cop coming down on him like a steamroller on acid.

<p>

We used 2475 recording film pushed in HC110. I might still have some footage pressed in a book for 40 years, and I'll bet it's STILL curled lengthwise.

[vivek iyer]

I was referring to the current situation, Pico and not the times before I was born!

 

With film (proclaimed) dead, amazingly there is a range of choices. ;-)

 

Only there appears to be fewer users! :(

[frederick_muller]

I remember 2475 recording. Can you imagine sandpaper? Ahhh, those were the days!

 

I agree with Roger for the most part ... the Canon 50mm f1.2 is a more practical all-around lens. That is because it is a much more forgiving performer at wider apertures. At f2.8 and up, the Canon 0.95 behaves pretty much like a regular 50mm. Wide open, its performance envelope becomes very, very unforgiving. Sharp in the center, and softer, but good enough, at the edges. Depth of field so thin you can slice it with a microtome. Very sensitive to camera shake. Might well have been optimized for performance inside 20 feet or so.

 

I don't agree that the Canon 50mm f0.95 and the Canon 50mm f1.2 have the same T-stop. As far as I can tell, the 0.95 is genuinely faster. If an objective reference can be cited for the T-stop data, I would be quite interested.

 

I have thought about converting the 0.95 for use on my RD-1s, but I have a sentimental attachment to keeping it on my Canon 7's. If I ever want to do f1 on the RD-1s I'll probably pick up a Noctilux.

[pico]

<i>I was referring to the current situation, Pico and not the times before I was born!</i><p>

Everything went to hell when you were born. It's all your fault, too.<p>

--<br>

Pico -- who was born in the first half of the previous century.

[frederick_muller]

Stripped for action. No protective filter (it is prone to flare anyway, but is particularly vulnerable when a skylight is used), three empty filter rings to form a makeshift hood, and a wider and more visible mark against the aperture ring.<div></div>

[frederick_muller]

(The .95 I used in a Canon 7 for those very difficult night shots during the Chicago chaos in the late sixties, early seventies.)

 

Just out of curiosity, Pico. It sounds like you were using it in what I think is the sweet spot, inside 20 feet. It would be interesting to know how far you pushed the 2475 Recording, and at what speeds you ended up shooting. The way you describe things, you would have been lucky to get perfectly exposed blurs of batons, smudges of duralumen shields, molotov cocktails, and police crash helmets.

[pico]

Sorry, I have no idea what speed we got out of the 2475. When we could, we metered at 1600ASA, and got it, kinda-sorta. We joked that the grain was so big that we didn't have to half-tone for repro; the pictures were already bit-dithered. (Hey, you know there WERE image processing machines back then... course they cost a million bucks, and we didn't have 'em.)

 

Anytime you wish to sell that black & and .95, please let me know. :)

 

(Never shot anything farther away than 30 feet with it. Anything that far away wasn't very interesting.)

[SCL]

My whoops - it was Ken Ruth, not Steve Gandy, who did my modification. The photos it produced were extremely soft at full aperture, but very sharp in the f5.6-8 range. Humbly I attach an old shot of the lens on my M4.<div></div>