Like a lot of amateur photographers, I’ve had a fascination with fast lenses for quite some time. I only learned recently though that camera companies have been making very fast lenses as early as the 60s. See the Canon 50mm ƒ/0.95 “Dream Lens” for example.

While lenses in this vein don’t compare favorably with modern optics on any objective dimension like sharpness, distortion, vignetting, etc., they produce some really pretty bokeh/out-of-focus effects. These days, more artistic statement than pragmatic utility.

So far I’ve managed to restrain myself and have never bought an L-mount camera, but I’m tempted every time I see this sort of thing.