The Canon EOS R6 Mark III is great, but this lens is amazing

Canon’s new EOS R6 Mark III is an excellent camera. It’s not a groundbreaking upgrade to the 3-year-old R6 Mark II, but it takes the same body with great ergonomics and adds more resolution, video that now goes up to 7K with open-gate filming, and improved autofocus performance. If you’re in need of an impeccably good all-around camera for anything from wildlife photography to weddings and videography, you can’t go wrong. It’s an easy recommendation, especially if you already shoot Canon and are due for an upgrade. (But a used R6 Mark II is also very appealing if the higher $2,799.99 price is too lofty.)

But the lens Canon launched alongside this camera? It’s something special. As a lover of fast-aperture glass, I’m absolutely obsessed with it. And it’s everything I want to see more of in the world of lenses.

The RF 45mm f/1.2 STM lens is a rare breed. It costs $469.99 — an unheard-of price in the photo / video world for an f/1.2 maximum aperture. That kind of price for a lens this fast is usually reserved for manual focus lenses from lesser-known third parties like Rokinon or Meike. Canon is notorious for not allowing third-party manufacturers to make lenses for its full-frame RF mount, so it’s created some of its own artificial scarcity that makes its new 45mm stand out further. Canon’s own RF 50mm f/1.2 L USM lens costs an eye-watering $2,600. And even a cheaper Sigma 50mm f/1.2 DG DN lens for other Sony and L-mount systems costs over $1,500. Hitting a sub-$500 price makes a fast-aperture lens like Canon’s 45mm accessible to more than pros and deep-pocketed enthusiasts.

But the 45mm f/1.2 isn’t just cheap, it’s a great lens. It’s very compact for full-frame glass with such a wide aperture, making it a perfect everyday carry combo with an R6 or smaller R8 body. This isn’t a “pro” lens like Canon’s L models, so it lacks weather sealing. And a lens hood for extra protection and flare prevention costs an additional $59. But I never expect weather resistance on full-frame lenses at this price, and I’d personally not bother with a hood — keeping this package as compact and grab-and-go as possible. As someone who often lugs around a bigger and heavier Sony FE 50mm f/1.2 GM lens (weighing 778 grams / 1.72 pounds), even sometimes to family events and social gatherings, I’m absolutely jealous of this little Canon. It weighs nearly a full pound less than my lens, and it’s much less bulky.

Does the 45mm f/1.2 optically stack up to the bigger, pro-focused f/1.2 lenses of the world? No, of course not. But its “good enough” level of image quality and the looks it can capture are so pleasant, I’m inclined not to care about its technical shortcomings. The RF 45mm is all about its wide-aperture look, with super shallow depth of field and lots of background blur (often referred to by the Japanese word “bokeh”) behind close subjects. It’s fairly sharp in the center of the frame at its wide-open f/1.2. It gets a little mushy in the corners of the frame, but that’s reasonable for this price. And you’re likely to place your subjects (e.g., close-up portraits of people) near the lens’s sweet spot in the center anyway, so most attention will be on the sharpest part of the frame.

This isn’t a “dreamy” lens, or one filled with “character” — which are photo nerd code words for soft lenses. I’ve left the aperture set to f/1.2 nearly the entire time I’ve used the 45mm and rarely been disappointed by its rendering. If I owned a Canon system, this lens would be my default choice for everyday slice-of-life shots. Hell, if Canon built this lens into a compact camera like a Fujifilm X100 or Leica Q of its own, I’d buy it as an everyday carry camera. (Bring back the Canonet, you cowards!)

Comparison photos with the Sony FE 50mm f/1.2 GM:

The RF 45mm of course isn’t without its flaws. Its biggest drawback is artifacting in high-contrast areas, where you see purple or green color fringing in front and behind the point of focus. This is a common issue in lower-cost lenses with big apertures, called longitudinal chromatic aberration (often referred to as “LoCa”). And you can get a lot of it in the 45mm, especially if you like shooting holiday string lights this time of year. It’s distracting and borderline annoying, especially when pixel-peeping, but for an f/1.2 of this size and price I can cope.

I’ll admit that I’m kind of a sucker for this lens. I love fast primes and good value. While it’s amazing how good most lenses from Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, etc. are these days, they keep climbing in price as they reach new levels of image quality and autofocus performance. We need more lenses like the RF 45mm f/1.2: very fast, affordable primes that are compact enough to take almost anywhere. It makes compromises on image quality, but they’re the right ones for a look and feel you can’t get anywhere else at this price.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge