EF 50mm 1.2 L vs. RF 50mm 1.8 stm

[toredd]

I have the opportunity to buy a brand new EF 50mm 1.2L for about 300 Euros or the RF nifty fifty 1.8 stm for about 130 Euros. I have a Canon R8 with its kit lens, and I wish to buy a fixed lens next to it. Mostly for videography, travel, street photos, and occasional night portraits.

I would also have to get an adapter for the EF one, but for 300 euros, it seems like a good deal. Can you please let me know the pros and cons of going with one or the other? Any help is greatly appreciated

[kvbarkley]

The pro is the extra light you can get with the 1.2. Only you can say whether it is worth it.

[wq9nsc]

The EF 50 and EF 85 f1.2 are both great lenses with excellent low light performance and perhaps more importantly their ability to create beautiful background blur via their ability to provide extremely shallow depth of field with the aperture wide open.  But this also creates their biggest drawback because if you want to use these lenses to their potential, then you have to be very cognizant of the very shallow depth of field to ensure that the full depth of what you want in focus is in focus.  And even if you step them down to create greater depth of field, they are fairly slow focusing compared to their lower cost counterparts due to the necessity of being designed to achieve very accurate focus when the depth of field is at minimum.

I have both the 50 and 85 in their f1.2 versions along with Canon's EF 85 f1.8 and Sigma's excellent 50 f1.4 "art" series.  There are times when the f1.2 glass can be used to do things that narrower aperture glass can't BUT you may not want to live with their behavior on a daily basis.  You might also consider "splitting the difference" with a f1.4 aperture lens.

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

"...  if you want to use these lenses to their potential, then you have to be very cognizant of the very shallow depth of field  ..."

Agreed. There will be a learning curve for sure to get the best from the ef 50mm f1.2L. Even at smaller apertures it doesn't work exactly like an f1.8 version does. As a further note the ef 85mm f1.2L is even more difficult to learn.