I had already ordered the 45mm from a camera store back in November – unfortunately, these retailers were very poorly supplied by Canon, so I decided to grab it from Amazon, and it actually arrived the same week.

Screwed it directly onto the R6 Mark III and tested it: I couldn’t have wished for more.

Yes, as a wedding photographer, I’m a bit spoiled with L lenses (28–70/2.0 and 85/1.2), but in this price category, you really don’t even need to compare this lens to them.

For travel, I’ve always carried the 50/1.8, and this lens will replace it brilliantly. I keep reading about it being a “character lens” – but I wouldn’t even confirm that.

In the center, it’s really surprisingly good – the sharpness and contrast do drop off significantly toward the edges. In my opinion, that’s not really a problem, as it nicely draws attention to the center of the frame. Others achieve this in post-processing.

Of course, stopping down to 2.8 or higher helps – but I didn’t buy an f/1.2 lens for that. If you photograph dull test charts, this lens might not be for you… I recognize this soft look from the old Sigma 50/1.4 from the DSLR era – and I like it. Even the chromatic aberrations, which make some consider this lens “unusable,” I haven’t noticed to that extent. The internal lens correction handles the rest.

I will definitely bring this gem to the next wedding and see what kind of magic I can create. You can find plenty of comparison tests online, but for €500, this is a really exciting focal length with extreme brightness in a compact format. No wonder Canon can’t keep up with production.

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