sharper being the operative modifier. It is still not a particularly sharp lens wide open, and this is very evident in the images.


First, let's talk about contrast @ f/1. There is a noticeable loss of contrast wide open, even though MTF @ 30lp/mm still looks reasonable in the center. The final set of images showing the same subject at f/1, f/1.4, f/2.8 demonstrate this quite clearly. This is what people refer to as the "dreamy" look.


You can also see this in the shot of the camera boxes, in particular the 100% crop showing the 70-200 box label. The purple fringing of the high-contrast transition shows this problem.


Next, let's talk about coma. There is very obvious comatic aberration evident in the bokeh image with the out of focus light sources. The blur circles are not only showing up tiny pointy features on the edge of the disk, but also, the uniformity of the disk is not quite even--something we can also observe in the DO lenses.


Now for the good news. This lens is in many respects still superior to the 50/1.2L, in my limited judgment of the images I've seen from both. The 50/1.0L has better corrected spherical aberration. It is also sharper when stopped down. I think this lens got a bad reputation from a lot of people shooting it at f/1 and not bothering to shoot it at smaller apertures; also, I think perhaps the real reason why the design was retired was because there might have been quality control issues that were uneconomical for Canon to work out, in part due to lackluster sales. The result is clearly a less ambitious optical design for 50mm, and yet it does not perform impressively better than the lens it replaced.


I would love to try the 50/1.0L at some point. It looks like a gorgeous piece of glass, shortcomings aside.