32mm f/1.4 --- Blue Mountains - (PICS)

jboyer wrote:

Thanks, Marco.

Looks like a keeper to me.

I'm thinking so myself.  I don't intend to return it or retire it but I think so far that it's a keeper.  There's no other lens like it for the EOS M system.

I have the 16-35mm L F4 attached to my M50. Bulky and heavy. I noticed I tend to use the 28-35 range a lot and often at F4 or 5.6. I take pictures of kids and people, nowadays.

I remember using that lens briefly on my original EOS M before returning it to a DSLR.  It was great on a tripod or with a flash but in lowlight it seemed a little ordinary, perhaps due to the aperture.  I bought this lens for my wife to use on an APS-C DSLR and she never bothered to use it. Both the f/2.8L and f/4L versions of the 16-35mm lens are great, the f/4L version was the sharpest and I bought the f/2,8 version for lowlight work.  If I need sharp, wide pictures today I tend to reach for the EF-M 11-22mm lens.

Given your range of equipment and picture expertise, would you consider the 32mm replacing the 16-35?

The 16-35mm lens is a beautiful lens on the Full Frame cameras but it's clearly matched by the 11-22mm lens from the EF-M range.  In fact this lens works out to be around 18-25mm when you factor in the APS-C crop.  There's a benefit to using a more light-sensitive Full Frame sensor... but I think that this is more beneficial with faster lenses in lowlight.

Being on fence regarding FF cameras (my 6D is begging replacement.. to what?) , I am using the m50 all the time now. Thus I am hesitating between saving the cost of a new M lens versus saving it for an R with kit lens, which looks like a nice upgrade from the 6D.

Like you, I consider the R to be the logical upgrade from the 6D.  I have spoken with quite a few people who have handled both the R and the new lenses and the weight and size is considerably much larger and heavier than the M system.  Not to mention the high cost of the new lenses.  But the 32mm f/1.4 is a sharp lens that might offer an alternative to the RF 50mm f1.2.

On the other end, I wonder how "better" would be such an R combination compared to the 50 M + 32 mm lens.

The R will produce excellent images.  It's a brilliant design and it's spectacular.  But the ultimate question will be "can it take significantly better pictures" than the 6D.  I think that with the new lenses it certainly can. But the price of those new lenses is quite high.  And if you can get a very similar shot with your M50, then the need to upgrade from your 6D should be taken cautiously.

This conundrum reminds me of buying EF-S lenses when there was a possibility than I would go up from APS-C to FF (which I did). And there were a few S lenses which are pretty good... not L, but close, like the 32mm here. (Is there an M to R adapter on the horizon?)

I'd doubt we'll see Canon produce any adapters to allow R lenses on an M body or M lenses on an R body.  But Canon occasionally experiment with their products. And like you, I've been enticed by some EF-S lenses but chose not to buy them since I couldn't use them practically on a FF DSLR.  You're right though: There's some very sharp EF-S lenses that were versatile.