CANON S 50mm F1.5(L39)

Review and photo examples of the CANON S 50mm F1.5(L39).

Photo example

The sample photo were taken with the EPSON R-D1,LEICA M8,LEICA M9

Review

The 50mm F1.5 is a standard L39 screw mount lens released by Canon for its Barnack Leica compatible cameras. Canon calls it S mount.

This 50mm F1.5 is a lens designed based on Carl Zeiss Sonnar, and you can clearly see this by looking at the lens configuration diagram in the reference book Leica Lenses of the World Part 2 (P44)/CANON 50mm F1.5. There are two lens names, CANON and Serenar, but both are the same lens.

The lens I owned was in relatively good condition, and as you can see from the example, you can see that the resolution in the focused area is good and that both the front and back blur smoothly and smoothly. Since this photo was taken digitally, the aperture is mostly wide open.

Compared to the Sonnar type 50mm lens released by Nikon in 1950, which had an aperture of F1.4, this lens, released two years later in 1952, only achieved F1.5, the same brightness as the Zeiss Sonnar. Therefore, this lens may have been a bit of a disappointment for Canon. However, Canon continued to develop standard lenses, releasing F1.2 in 1956, F1.4 in 1957, and in 1961 arrived at the ultra-large aperture standard lens F0.95, the last standard lens for S lenses.
If you look at the Canon Museum, there are 16 50mm standard lenses, including improved ones, and Canon’s L39 screw mount standard lenses from the Canon S era are very diverse.

This lens is also an old lens that is over 70 years old, so there are many lenses with scratches on the lens surface and cloudiness due to balsam cuts, but the lenses that are in good condition are priced high for an old 50mm lens. If you want to enjoy Sonnar-like images, Cosina Zeiss’s C Sonnar may be sufficient. However, the beautiful silver exterior, which is in mint condition, arouses the desire to photograph.

Specification

Items	CANON	Ms-optics Sonnetar	C Sonnar	Nikkor S.C
Focal length(mm)	50	←	←	←
Max aperture	1.5	1.3	1.5	1.4
Min aperture	16	16	16	16
Leaf blade	13	12	10	12
Lens Construction	7elements in 3groups	5elements in 4groups	6elements in 4groups	7elements in 4groups
Min distance(m)	1.0	0.7	0.9	1.0
Lens length(mm)	36	35.7	45	39
Max diameter(mm)	49	50	56	49
Filter Size(mm)	40	49	46	43
Weight(g)	270	123	250	280
Lens mount	L39	M	ZM	L39
Release date	1952.11	2022.3	2006.8	1950
価格（定価・税別）	36,500-	–	¥105,000-	–

Reference links

Canon Museum 50mm F1.5
Leica lenses from around the world Part 2 (P44)/CANON 50mm F1.5・amazon affiliate link
Leica lenses from around the world Part 2 (P74)/NIKKOR S.C 50mm F1.4・amazon affiliate link

Update history

2024.05.27

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