The Canon EOS R6 Mark III is great, but this lens is amazing

New Canon The EOS R6 Mark III is an excellent camera. It’s not a groundbreaking upgrade from the 3-year-old R6 Mark II, but it takes the same body with Great work environment It adds more resolution, video now up to 7K with open-gate shooting, and improved autofocus performance. If you need a perfectly good all-round camera for anything from wildlife photography to weddings and videography, you can’t go wrong. It’s an easy recommendation, especially if you’re already shooting Canon and need to upgrade. (But a Used R6 Mark II It is also very attractive if it is higher $2,799.99 The price is very high.)

But the lens that Canon launched alongside this camera? It’s something special. As a fan of fast aperture glass, I’m absolutely obsessed with it. This is all I want to see more of in the world of lenses.

The RF 45mm f/1.2 STM is a rare breed. It costs $469.99 – an unheard-of price in the photo/video world for a maximum aperture of f/1.2. This kind of lens price at this speed is usually reserved for manual focus lenses from lesser-known third parties like Rokinon or Meike. Canon is famous for Not allowing third party manufacturers To make lenses for full frame RF mounts, I have created some artificial rarity that makes their new 45mm size stand out even more. Canon Special RF 50mm f/1.2 L USM The lens costs $2,600. And even cheaper Sigma 50mm f/1.2 DG DN The lens for other Sony and L-mount systems costs more than $1,500. Coming in at under $500 makes a fast aperture lens like the Canon 45mm more accessible to professionals and enthusiasts with deep pockets.

But the 45mm f/1.2 is not only cheap, it’s a great lens. It’s very compact for a full-frame glass with such a wide aperture, making it an ideal everyday carry kit with an R6 or smaller R8 body. This is not a “professional” lens like Canon’s L models, so it lacks weather resistance. And a lens hood for added protection and flare prevention costs Additional $59. But I’d never expect weather resistance on full-frame lenses at this price, and I personally wouldn’t bother with a hood – keeping this package as compact and easy to use as possible. As someone who often uses the larger and heavier Sony FE 50mm f/1.2 GM lens (it weighs 778g / 1.72lbs), even occasionally at family events and social gatherings, I’m very jealous of this little Canon camera. It weighs about a full pound less than my lens, and is much slimmer.

Does the 45mm f/1.2 match up optically with the world’s largest, best-focused f/1.2 lenses? No, of course not. But its “good enough” level of image quality and the look it can capture is so pleasing, I’m not inclined to care about its technical shortcomings. The RF 45mm is all about its wide-aperture look, with a very shallow depth of field and lots of background blur (often referred to by the Japanese word “bokeh”) behind close-up subjects. It’s fairly sharp in the center of the frame with a wide f/1.2 aperture. It gets a little soft in the corners of the frame, but that’s reasonable for this price. You’ll likely be placing your subjects (e.g., close-up portraits of people) near the lens’ sweet spot in the middle anyway, so most of the attention will be on the sharpest part of the frame.

This is not a “dreamy” lens, or a lens full of “character” – code words for soft lenses. I left the aperture set to f/1.2 almost the entire time I used the 45mm lens and was rarely disappointed with its width. If I owned a Canon system, this lens would be my default choice for everyday shots. Hell, if Canon built this lens into a compact camera like the Fujifilm X100 or Leica Q, I’d buy it as a portable camera for everyday use. (Come back CanonYou cowards!)

Comparison images with the Sony FE 50mm f/1.2 GM lens:

Of course the RF 45mm is not without its drawbacks. Its biggest drawback is fringing in high-contrast areas, where you see purple or green fringing in front of and behind the focus point. This is a common problem with low-cost lenses with large apertures, called longitudinal chromatic aberration (often referred to as “LoCa”). And you can get a lot of them in 45mm, especially if you like photographing holiday string lights this time of year. It’s distracting and borderline annoying, especially when pixel peeping, but for an f/1.2 at this size and price, I can deal with it.

I will admit that I am obsessed with this lens. I like fast primes and good value. While it’s surprising how good most lenses from Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, etc. are these days, they continue to rise in price as they reach new levels of image quality and autofocus performance. We need more lenses like the RF 45mm f/1.2: very fast, At a reasonable price Primes are compact enough to carry almost anywhere. They compromise on image quality, but they’re the best for having a look and feel you can’t get anywhere else at this price.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto/The Verge