Canon 50mm f/0.95 "Dream Lens"
You wouldn’t know it by looking at my current kit (there are a lot of red rings in it) but I am neither a gear snob nor a pixel-peeper. I enjoy the aesthetics of photography much more than any perceived technical “perfection.”
And aesthetics is why I purchased a Canon 50mm f/0.95 “Dream Lens” in 2016. Its very clean, fungus-free glass and mount already adapted to Leica M were deciding factors in purchasing the particular lens I did.
Introduced in the early 1960s for Canon’s 7/7S rangefinder cameras, the Dream Lens’ f/0.95 aperture (much like Canon’s EF 50mm f/1.0 L lens nearly 30 years later) was more of a technical demonstration and marketing gimmick than anything else.
Two versions were produced: approximately 20,000 with the native mount and another 7,000 or so with a mount for TV cameras of the era. They’re optically very similar despite differences in coatings and rear elements.
To say this lens has a cult following is a bit like saying Atlanta’s rush hour traffic can be irksome. Its current popularity is no doubt due to its relatively easy adaptability to MILC (Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera) systems.
I briefly shot my Dream Lens with a Canon M3 (a camera and accoutrement I’ve since passed on to my niece). Though cameras with APS-C and Micro 4/3 sized sensors are physically able to use this lens (with an appropriate adapter, of course), it really needs a larger sensor to shine.
Until recently, Sony was the only player in the full-frame mirrorless game. The technical merits, enticing to many Canon shooters, for sure, were never enough for me to switch just so I could use one lens; besides, my hoard of red rings really kept me from switching systems and I knew Canon would eventually give me a full-frame mirrorless camera.
Since I mentioned it earlier, let’s talk about optics. It’s soft, suffers from massive chromatic aberrations and vignettes heavily when shot wide open.
Yes, this lens is soft, but most of that “perceived” softness is due to its inherent glow similar to the “IR glow” of shooting Kodak HIE which was due that film’s lack of an anti-halation layer.
This lens’ 400 pound Gorilla is its bokeh. Few people are on the fence about it; they either love it or hate it. It is neither the smooth & buttery total background obliteration of my Canon EF 135mm f/2.0 L nor is it the potentially seizure-inducing “swirly bokeh” of my Helios 40-2 85mm f/1.5, though it is closer to the latter.
The softness and vignetting are mitigated a bit with smaller apertures but, regretfully, so is the unique character of its bokeh. So let’s get real… no one gets this lens to shoot it stopped down. That’s why we have ND filters.
This lens is on the heavy side, but it has a lot of glass and metal. Its focus throw is ridiculous; you will not be quickly racking focus with this lens.
Despite its size and weight, it’s well-balanced on a body. The EOS R feels really good in the hand to begin with and, paired with this lens, is a fun combination.
Oddly, the one thing I didn’t expect was how organic/film like the RAW files looked. There was a granularity to them I’d never seen in a digital file. I’m not discounting the placebo effect; I expected magic and Celia Bowen showed up.
When cheap, plasticky and slow 18-55 kit lenses are optically “better” than a 50+ year old manual focus lens, why would anyone want to use it? The truth is, they wouldn’t.
That’s the thing, though, users don’t shoot it for optical “perfection.” Images shot with this lens have an ethereal, dreamlike quality to them. Hence its nickname the “Dream Lens.”
The effects of this lens cannot be recreated with software, it can only be achieved in-camera.
MILC systems and their easy adaptability have allowed people to use old “obsolete” film-era lenses again and that’s a great thing, because adapting weird, quirky and unapologetically "flawed" vintage lenses will yield images you just can’t get any other way.
There’s more to a good photograph than optical “perfection.”
Besides, while those pixel-peepers are busy hunched-over and squinting at their computer’s monitor, the rest of us are out shooting pictures and having fun. Isn’t that what this hobby is all about?
