Why Your F1.2 Lenses Suck

I remember when I first really started getting into photography in the early 2000s that f1.2 lenses were considered peak photography. Even holding one was something special. They were so hard to use, but the images they made were so intensely beautiful. Back then, the only ones that I’d see were from Canon and Leica. Nikon had a few, but no photographers ever really seemed to use them. Fast forward to today, and nearly every manufacturer has an f1.2 lens.

No, really. Everyone has got one. Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Leica, Panasonic, Olympus/OM System, Sigma, Viltrox, Samyang, etc. The only ones who don’t are Zeiss and Viltrox.

So here’s the thing: the novelty has worn off. The appeal of an f1.2 lens is the fact that it delivers such seriously thin bokeh and depth of field. But the truth is that everyone also has f1.4 lenses and no one can really tell much of a difference between one or the other unless they’re doing side-by-side comparisons. What’s more, they’re all being made with this effort to create the most clinically evolved and clear images possible.

In the end, they all end up looking the same.

What we need more of is character that looks unique.

It’s time for things to change. The big brands need to look at options from folks like Meyer Optik, Lomography, Lensbaby, etc. It’s time for f1.2 lenses with soap bubble bokeh, Petzval swirl, etc. The older designs sometimes do something really special for images that modern lenses don’t do. And if anything, we need more novelty optics that can give us special looks.

I remember being told by Sigma that there are enough character lenses out there, but there aren’t enough done by big manufacturers. Sony, Canon, and Nikon maybe have two at best.

I’m going to do something. Watch this.

The following images are from our archives and shot with 50mm f1.2 lenses. Without clicking on the images and without pixel peeping, can any of you tell the differences?

And now here are images from 35mm f1.2 lenses. Can you tell the differences between one or another?

See what I mean? All of them are just images and all of them look really similar to one another. In the end, no one can tell the difference. What about 85mm f1.2 lenses?

In the end, they’re all just images. Canon, Nikon, Sony, Viltrox, Sigma, Leica, you name is they’re all doing things so similar that you can’t tell one from the other. And that’s a massive problem in today’s photography world.

Folks, this can’t be solved at the macro and micro level of photography. It needs to be solved as you look at the whole image. And the brands need to do more with their billions of dollars to figure out ways to lean into better and unique looks. I need a reason to buy a Sony lens instead of a Canon lens. Of any of the big brands, I’d say that Canon does the most to deliver a unique look. But part of that comes from the fact that they’ve got their own sensors. The rest don’t.

And if everyone is making the same pizza slices with the same ingredients using their own ovens, how are they going to differentiate themselves?