After much debate, and a job that gave me a bit of extra cash, I decided to spring for this lens. The Canon 50mm f0.95 is one of several f0.95s made for full frame format–the fastest lenses ever made for 35mm photography. Canon introduced this lens in 1961, a true marvel of engineering and optical design at the time. The lens is a double gauss variant, with an extra converging element at the front–7 elements in 5 groups–actually a pretty standard design for the time. It has a special mount, a bayonet collar, designed exclusively for the Canon 7 series cameras, which had an outer bayonet as well as standard inner M39 Leica thread mount. A second version of the Canon 0.95 was designed for TV, and has both a different mount and lacks the cutaway of the last element, which needed to be done to allow for a rangefinder lever for the Canon 7.
While both Leica and Mitakon make f0.95 fifties, I was particularly interested in the Canon for its very unique bokeh. While somewhat like the Canon 50mm f1.2 LTM, it is wilder, with very sharp, edgy circles of confusion, which become very oval outside the center of the frame. I was frankly surprised at the quality of the lens wide open. At the point of focus, it is quite sharp, though the bokeh just out of focus both front and back is “smeary”. which gives the impression that it is not as sharp as it is. Chromatic aberration is surprisingly well controlled, and vignetting, while noticeable, is not extreme. Altogether a very fun lens, which I am enjoying more and more.
