The Glorious Bokeh of the Legendary Canon 50mm f/1.0L

Say it with me folks: Holy Bokeh Batman! Back in 2014, photographer Matt Granger got his hands on the Canon 50mm f/1.0—a legend of a lens that’s accurately been described as, “wholly impractical and yet highly desirable”—and took it for a spin. See what this bokeh monster can do.

As Granger points out, this isn’t the fastest full-frame lens on the market, but while it is 11% slower than the Leica Noctilux, it’ll cost about half as much and gives you autofocus as part of the bargain.

But enough talk, we’re here for some bokeh porn samples right? Let’s take these one at a time, so you can see the difference f/1.0 really makes. Here’s the lens shooting at f/2.8:

Now let’s open it up to f/1.4:

And finally, a few images at f/1.0:

In case that difference is hard to see while scrolling, here’s a side-by-side of an f/2.8 image and an f/1.0 shot. The background absolutely melts away, giving you a slice of focus so thin you’d better have exceptional technique or you’ll miss:

Check out the video up top to watch Matt’s full demo with this bokeh beast, and then head over to his website for more tutorials, gear guides, and other fun stuff.

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Image credits: All photos by Matt Granger and used with permission.