Olympus OM-Zuiko 55mm f1.2

Olympus made at leaset five 50mm lenses and this one 55mm lens. i used them all in different applicaitons, and found this 55mm f1.2 is the best among the 6 50-55mm zuiko lenses.

rich heavy but natural color saturation, sharp, contrast, smooth transit tones, bright and briliant views. use this lens to paint the oil-paint that Da Vinci did...

it was discontinued maybe due to its "rare earth elements" [radiation?], but it is just because of these rare earth elements that made it excel! radiation?? forget it! it's much less than you stand in the sunlight for 15 minutes in your daily life.

nikkor 55/1.2, 58/1.2, leica M 50/1.0....

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I love this lens. I had the opportunity several times to photograph flamenco dance stage productions by available light. Normally, I use Leica M3s. One of my Leicas was in for repair, so I took my Olympus OM1 with this 55mm f1.2 lens with me to the assignment. It was a joy to focus because the 55mm focal length was just about the same as viewing with the naked eye when I looked into the extremly big and bright OM1 viewscreen. When I turned the camera to the vertical positon, I was able to keep both eyes open. It was like having no camera at all since I had both eyes open and saw the exact same subject image size and brightness. I shot the show at 1/60th using f2.0 on both the Leica and the Olympus 55mm f1.2. When the photos came back, I liked the Olympus images better. More of them were in focus and sharper, in my opinio, than my 50 summicron at f2. I sold the 50 summicron a week later and bought a 75mm Summilux. I did not need two 50 mm lenses. The Leica, I am sure, would be a better lens when stopped down and tested, but I could not see it on my prints. That beautiful 55mm f1.2 Zuiko just made life much more easier when looking at an image through it in the huge Olympus OM1 viewfinder. In my opinion,no other SLR has such a magnificent viewfinder.

Very bright. Image is life size when looking throught the 55mm lens. It is slightly smaller than life size if you use the 50mm lens.

None. Took bad it is out of production, as is the OM1. However, there are lots of OM1s out there dirt cheap. I have 4 OM1s in mint condition. They are the sleepers who will be awakened some day when someone rediscovers how well made they are and how easy they are to use. I hate cameras that run on batteries or cameras that are loaded with blinking lights and buttons all over the place. I do not want my camer to do anything I have not told it to do.

Leica M3.

Never had any of my Olympus gear in for repair.

This lenses is one of the luckiest combos I ever had of sharpness, acutance and contrast. Against fine grained films, it delivered superb detachment between objects boundaries, vivid greytones, high contrast and little aberration or distortion if any. I had three of these lenses tested, on an Olympus OM1n body, against other prime lenses ... and IMHO they are to be ranked among the best. Sharpness, acuteness and contrast were evaluated comparatively over three other lenses, after scanning the respective negatives and gazing the image results in actual pixels mode. This would not be an acurate absolute result due to digitalization biases, but comparison boils down to show the differences between the lenses souls. Although I think we should never let good lenses go - because lenses are good for their brand but also for some innefable, particular, individual factors that may not repeat in future exemplars - I may have sold the best of them. Life goes that way. We win a little but also may lose a little.

Light, sharp, acute, contrasty and fully manual!

Shift of focusing ring after 10yrs of use or so - infinite was focused between 8-10m.

Nikkor 50mm f/1.2

It had to be serviced due to the focusing shift mentioned above - I did it myself cutting the rubberband of the focusing ring covering the lens barrel just for a slight regulation of one tiny screw.