The Canon RF 50mm F1.4 L VCM ($1,549) is the company's first RF prime with the classic 50mm F1.4 optical formula, a versatile prime focal length that's a good fit for everyday photography, portraits, and other photos that isolate a subject from the background. The 50mm F1.4 wins points for its small barrel and reasonable carry weight, fast focus, and crisp photos, but it tends to show flare in backlit scenes and draw bokeh that's a little busy for an F1.4 prime. Even with those drawbacks, it's an excellent performer, albeit pricey when compared with similar lenses for other camera systems. Canon owners are used to paying a little bit more as the RF system excludes third-party support, but can turn to our Editors' Choice, the RF 45mm F1.2 STM ($469), if the RF 50mm F1.4 L VCM is too big a pill to swallow.

Design: Matched in Size With Other VCM Primes

The RF 50mm F1.4 L VCM is part of a series of RF primes with VCM focus motors and shared barrel sizes and control layouts. The consistency is good news for videographers who use gimbal stabilization, as it makes it easy to switch lenses without rebalancing the support system. Photographers should appreciate the similar feel and button placement when switching lenses, too. Canon also has 14mm, 20mm, 24mm, 35mm, and 85mm lenses in the series.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The lens is appropriately sized for gimbals and handheld photography. It measures 3.9 by 3.0 inches (HD), weighs 1.3 pounds, and works with 67mm filters. That's in line with the other VCM primes. The only outlier is the 14mm F1.4 L VCM, as it doesn't work with front filters and includes an integrated lens hood. The 50mm F1.4 L VCM is also significantly smaller and lighter versus Canon's premium RF 50mm F1.2 L USM (4.3 by 3.5 inches, 2.1 pounds, 77mm filters) prime.

Canon uses its typical sturdy polycarbonate material for the outer barrel. It's a high-grade plastic that's made to withstand the rigors of day-to-day use, just what you expect from its L-series glass. The RF 50mm F1.4 is weather-sealed and includes anti-smudge fluorine on its front element, both expected features in a premium lens.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Bundled accessories include the standard front and rear caps, a lens hood, and a drawstring pouch.

Controls and Focus: Three On-Barrel Rings

The 50mm F1.4 L VCM has three discrete control rings on the barrel. An aperture ring is closest to the mount and turns continuously, without click stops, from f/1.4-16, plus has an A position to cede f-stop adjustment to the camera body, and an Iris Lock switch to keep it set to either the A slot or manual range. This approach is a good choice for video, where continuous adjustment without added noise is a positive and allows the use of a follow focus accessory for motor-driven changes to the f-stop. The ring works when recording videos with any EOS R camera body, but it only works in photo mode with newer bodies, specifically the EOS R1, R5 Mark II, R6 Mark III, and R50 V.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Regardless, I think that photographers who want on-barrel aperture control are better off using the flexible Control Ring to set the f-stop. It's located toward the front of the lens and offers confident click stops, so you can easily make third-stop adjustments without worrying about a slip of the finger changing your aperture during a shoot. The Control Ring is configurable via the camera menu; you can set it to one of 12 functions, including EV, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance.

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The lens has a single configurable function button on its left side, just next to the AF/MF toggle switch. The function button engages focus lock (AF-L) with out-of-the-box camera settings, but can be remapped to one of a few dozen functions via the camera menu.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

A voice coil motor drives autofocus and gives the lens its VCM designation. It drives focus in an instant—there's no delay when snapping between near and distant subjects with the EOS R5 Mark II. Manual focus also works well. The focus ring turns with pleasing resistance, and the motor kicks in with no lag; it's just as nice to use as an old-school mechanical focus system.

In manual mode, you can choose between nonlinear focus, which adjusts focus based on the rotation speed, or linear focus, which bases changes on rotation angle. I like nonlinear focus for photography because it makes it easy to switch between roughshod adjustments and fine focus, while videographers tend to use linear focus in order to repeat the same focus rack across multiple takes. The RF 50mm F1.4 L VCM is a good lens for shots that shift focus; its wide aperture creates a shallow depth of field, allowing you to change the plane of focus for narrative effect. While there is some breathing, the change in angle of view between near and distant focus isn't too bad, so you won't notice the frame blooming or shrinking during most rack shots.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

The RF 50mm F1.4 L VCM focuses as close as 15.7 inches for 1:6.7 life-size macro reproduction. This is a pretty typical figure for a fast 50mm. The RF 50mm F1.2 L USM focuses to the same distance but has a higher macro rating (1:5.3) because it shows more focus breathing—its angle of view is noticeably narrower when focused versus infinity. Canon hasn't yet added a 50mm Macro to its RF lineup, which is a curious omission as it has RF 24mm F1.8 IS STM Macro, 35mm F1.8 IS STM Macro, and 85mm F2 Macro IS STM lenses, all of which support half-size (1:2) reproduction.

Image Quality: Detailed Photos, With Some Flare and Busy Bokeh

I tested the 50mm F1.4 L VCM with Imatest software and the 45MP EOS R5 Mark II in the lab to evaluate its optical performance, and took it out for photos in the real world to evaluate its character. The lens tests well, scoring in the excellent range at the center of the frame at f/1.4 (4,200 lines) and crossing into outstanding territory from f/2-8 (4,600-5,000 lines). The average score is a little lower as the edges aren't quite in focus at test chart distances, but even so, the lens is in the very good range wide open (3,700 lines), excellent at f/2-2.8 (4,000-4,200 lines), and outstanding from f/4-8 (4,500-4,700 lines).

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

I attribute the discrepancy to field curvature, the effect in which the central point of focus lies in a different plane than the periphery. I looked at some real-world images captured at f/1.4 with a centered subject and noted that the sharpest points of the edges are a few feet closer to the lens. For the image above, I focused on the baseball coach and umpire at the center of the image, and see that the sharpest parts of the grassy field are closer to the camera. This isn't anything to worry about in most scenes, but for landscapes, it's a good idea to stop down to f/2.8-8 to get photos that are sharp from center to corner, which is the best practice with any lens. It's a non-issue for portraits and other shallow-depth-of-field photos where you want a softened backdrop.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Like all lenses, the RF 50mm F1.4 L VCM loses some resolution at f/11-16, a consequence of optical diffraction, the physical effect where light particles scatter apart as they pass through a narrow diaphragm. It's best to avoid stopping down beyond f/8 with the RF 50mm. For many lenses, I suggest using tiny apertures to add crisp, dramatic sunstars to images, but the RF 50mm delivers starbursts with mushy, undefined tines and some ugly flare.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

It also uses a correction profile to remove a nearly nominal amount of pincushion distortion and a more noticeable vignette, visible at f/1.4-2 without corrections, that darkens the edges and corners of images. If you use your camera for JPGs or movies, the corrections are applied transparently. Photographers who use a Raw format will want to use editing software to apply fixes, though with this lens, it's no big deal if you skip it. The distortion is barely noticeable, even when viewing a corrected JPG versus an uncorrected Raw side by side, and the vignette is a matter of taste.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

Flare resistance is a little disappointing with this lens, generally speaking. It's prone to showing false color in strongly backlit scenes. In some cases, I was able to suppress it by slightly shifting the camera angle, but with a very strong, bright backlight, the flare is unavoidable at the widest aperture.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

I'll also call out the background blur, or bokeh, as a potential sticking point. The RF 50mm F1.4 L VCM draws defocused highlights with hard, defined edges and onion skin texture, a combination that lends itself to frenetic backdrops in some instances. You won't notice if you've got a clear sky behind your subject, but foliage, tree branches, and other complex backdrops can look a little busy. Highlights show the typical cat's-eye shape at f/1.4, but are pleasingly round starting at f/2 as they take on the shape of the 11-blade aperture.

(Credit: Jim Fisher)

On the plus side, the lens completely avoids false green and purple color shifts (longitudinal chromatic aberration), an issue that we see with affordable lenses like the RF 50mm F1.8 STM and RF 45mm F1.2 STM. It's really up to you if the background blur is an issue. Some creators prefer a lens that shows more characterful backgrounds as the effect can give images a vintage look, while others will crave the clean, smooth bokeh that's more common in modern lenses.