Typically, f/1.2 lenses are found in professional-level lens line-ups and tend to set you back a small fortune. This 45mm F1.2 STM lens is designed to offer enthusiasts without such deep pockets the chance to own and use a very wide aperture prime lens – oh and it’s compact and lightweight too.

　　If a cheap, lightweight, ultra wide aperture lens sounds like it’s too good to be true, you’ll be wondering what the catch is. I’ll be finding out if it can actually deliver decent-quality imagery, or whether there’s a sacrifice to make here.

　　At $429/£479, it’s not a super bargain basement product by any stretch. But, consider that the Canon RF 50mm F1.2L USM R-mount lens has an RRP of $2599/£2449, then you can start to understand why at under $500 it feels like you’re getting an extraordinary deal.

　　Canon told us that the RF 45mm F1.2 STM should offer similar image quality to its EF 50mm F1.2L USM lens, built for DSLRs. This is again a much more expensive lens, still available to buy for around $1400/£1600 – so that sub $500 price point starts to sound ever-more attractive.

　　However, it’s also worth remembering that there is another “cheap lens” alternative in Canon’s line-up, and that’s the RF 50mm F1.8 lens. Sure, it’s not as wide, but it is available for under $220, which takes the sheen off the 45mm F1.2 somewhat.

　　The 45mm F1.2 lens closely competes with its rival’s Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens – both are available for around the same price, but of course, with the Canon you get that f/1.2 factor, which seems to be worth a huge amount to some people.

　　At A Glance $429/£479 f/1.2 aperture 45mm focal length 0.45m minimum focus distance 346g Canon RF Mount Features Being just a few mm short of the classic 50mm focal length, this is a lens which has the potential to work well across a range of different subjects.

　　The classic choices are for portraits travel and street photography, but you could also apply it for still life, pets, weddings and events, and even some aspects of things like architecture and landscapes.

　　With its extremely wide aperture, it’s also suited to low-light photography, where you want to keep ISO down.

　　This is Canon’s sub $500/non-professional lens to use an f/1.2 aperture, and is perhaps a good way to show off to the world exactly what the company is capable of producing at this type of price point. Most average enthusiasts might drool over the idea of f/1.2, but assume it’ll always be out of reach – but not necessarily so with a lens like this.

　　Of course, this is not the most sophisticated lens, build wise, as you’d expect for the reduction in price. This is not a lens where you’ll find a complex construction, or a vast array of special coatings.

　　There are 9 lens elements in 7 groups, with one PMo Aspherical lens. There’s 9 diaphragm blades for creating those out of focus areas. There is Super Spectra coating, to help reduce ghosting and flare, but that’s it, there’s no fluorine coating or anything else.

　　For autofocusing, there’s an STM (stepper motor), while the closest focusing distance is 0.45m and it has a maximum magnification of 0.13m.

　　Build and Handling At just 346g, this really is a lovely light lens. This makes it great for using as a walkaround or every day lens. If you fancy a day trip or an afternoon of street photography, it’s certainly great in that respect. It’s also nice and small at just 75mm long and 78mm in diameter (which is pretty small for an f/1.2 lens).  It’s larger than the 50mm F1.8 though, so if you are looking for ultimate portability, then it doesn’t win there.

　　The 45mm lens comes with front and rear lens caps, but there’s no hood provided in the box. This helps to keep the cost down, but if you feel you’re missing one, you can purchase the ES-73B hood separately.

　　Design-wise, the 45mm F1.2 is fairly simple. There’s an AF/MF switch, plus a large-ish focusing ring in the middle section of the lens, and a control ring towards the front of the lens. You can use this control ring to adjust a number of different settings, such as shutter speed or aperture. I don’t find myself using these things all that often, but perhaps if you’ve been used to using old lenses in the past, you might like it.

　　Impressively, for a low-cost lens, the 45mm F1.2 uses a metal mount, rather than a plastic one. This gives me confidence that it should last well with repeated mountings and dismountings. It uses a 67mm filter diameter, if you wanted to use any of those.

　　Some bad news is that the lens is not dust or moisture resistant. You might wish to be careful with it in certain scenarios – such as heavy downpours, or in sandy/dusty locations, for that reason.

　　Autofocus On the whole, autofocusing with this lens was fairly quick and quiet in most circumstances.

　　When shooting street and portraits, I tended to leave it in Flexible Zone AF with people detection and eye-detection enabled and concentrate on composition instead. There were a few occasions when it didn’t quite behave as I wanted it to and so I switched to spot focus instead though.

　　It managed to keep up quite well with some moving subjects. Its not something I’d rely on with very erratic subjects, but the focal length makes it unlikely to be an obvious choice for that kind of thing anyway.

　　Sound-wise, autofocusing isn’t particularly audible so you can use it in discreet situations and for video work with confidence.

　　The minimum focus distance being 0.45m means it’s possible to shoot some close-ups which fill the frame – think fairly large leaves and so on.

　　Image Quality The 45mm F1.2 lens is perfectly capable of taking some great shots, but there’s a lot of compromises to be made – if you’re looking for something which really excels across the board, this ain’t it.

　　Of course, it’s a sub $500 f/1.2 lens, so it was never going to be optically perfect – far from it – but how much you’re willing to live with is a matter for personal preference.

　　With this lens, if you only concentrate on the centre of the frame, don’t look too closely at what’s going on around the edges, don’t mind visible chromatic aberration, and don’t get hung-up on beautifully creamy bokeh, then you’ll likely be extremely happy with the results.

　　If however any of those things matter to you, then it’s worth thinking about whether this lens really is the bargain it purports to be, or whether youll quickly get frustrated by its limitations.

　　The overall impression of detail is fine, and in reality if you’re only going to look at your photos on either your phone screen or some other relatively small screen, then you’ll likely be fine with the results. Sharpness is lost at the edges across the different apertures, and sometimes that’s more obvious than others.

　　Turning off lens profile corrections in Adobe Camera Raw reveals quite a drastic difference in uncorrected images vs the final result. There’s extremely noticeable vignetting when shooting wide open, while there’s also very obvious distortion too. Still, why would you turn off corrections – they’re there for a reason, right?

　　Having an f/1.2 aperture affords shooting with a very limited depth of field, resulting in very out of focus backgrounds. Here’s where the 45mm F1.2 sometimes does very well, but with some caveats.

　　When there are catch lights, you’ll usually find that you get so-called “cats eye” bokeh, rather than the attractive round-bokeh we usually like to see. We also sometimes see the bokeh looking very “rough” in places, being jagged in appearance and not lovely and creamy. The quality of bokeh is fairly subjective though, so it might not be totally off-putting if you’re expecting it – and of course bearing in mind that to achieve that high-quality creamy look you will generally be spending a lot more money.

　　That said, at times I felt like I was looking at something out of a toy camera, or with one of those plastic lenses that you might buy for a laugh, rather than a $500 optic.

　　Compared to shooting wide open with an F1.8 lens, you will see that the depth of field is much more limited. This isn’t necessarily always a good thing – you might find for example that too much of a face is out of focus, or there’s very little of a still life actually in focus. You’d also have to be very careful if you wanted to shoot with manual focus.

　　While the lens does well to control ghosting and flare, the same can’t be said for chromatic aberration. There’s very noticeable instances of it in shots which feature high-contrast in the background. It’s arguably not that big a deal unless you’re going to spend a lot of time looking for it, but it’s certainly worth being aware of.

　　How does this lens compare with other similar or competing optics? I’ve used Nikon’s 50mm f/1.4 lens, which has similar problems with rough looking bokeh, but I’d say is better overall. The 45mm F1.2 also has similar-ish image quality to Canon’s 50mm F1.8 lens, so really it comes down to whether you want to spend the extra to get the f/1.2 aperture, or not.

　　Overall, you probably get best results from this lens when shooting between f/2.0 and f/5.6 … and if you’re going to shoot at those apertures, why not save your cash and get an f/1.8 lens?

　　Verdict This is a lens that proves that you can create an f/1.2 lens and not have it cost an absolute fortune. A bit of a marketing gimmick, sure, but if f/1.2 is what you really, really want, then it’s worth contemplating buying.

　　There are a lot of compromises to make when it comes down to image quality here – and while $479 is low priced for an f/1.2 lens, it’s still a lot of money.

　　Personally, I’d probably stick with a 50mm F1.8 lens and not get so hung up on having an f/1.2 lens – I don’t think there’s many instances where you actually genuinely need it. Maybe if you’re doing an awful lot of low-light work, but I don’t think it adds enough for portraits to justify the extra cost.

　　Alternatively, I’d probably look to get hold of a 50mm F1.4 instead either save up for longer if that was a possibility, and/or look for one on the second-hand market – generally speaking – if you can it’s usually  better to invest in something good that will last you a long time, than to “buy cheap and buy twice.”

　　Overall, while the 45mm F1.2 lens is a flexible and versatile optic which is well-suited to a range of subjects, there’s a lot of compromises to be made in order to get it to that low asking price – whether it’s the right lens for you is likely down to personal circumstances and how badly you crave an f/1.2 optic in your life.

　　Related reading:

　　Best Canon RF mount lenses in 2026: top mirrorless lenses for photo and video Best Canon RF lenses for portrait photography Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM review – good lens, great value Do you want to win some great prizes for your photography? Enter your photos in our International Amateur Photographer of the Year competition. Free entry for photographers aged 13-21.

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