Sometimes progress moves at such a slow rate that it's difficult to notice it truly being made. Sometimes we get clear signals.
We're currently getting clear signals with prime lens designs.
Let me explain. Back in 1959, Nikon made their 35mm f/2.8 lens. We got four different versions of it over time, then three AI versions. In 1962, the 35mm f/2 appeared, and here we had eight different versions over time. So as I finished high school the state of primes (for Nikon, though this was mirrored by other brands) was a slightly compromised f/2 (when used wide open) versus a somewhat better f/2.8. Your choice. Faster or slower.
In 1971 when I first started photographing sporting events, Nikon introduced their first 35mm f/1.4 lens. In 1989 Nikon added autofocus and completely redesigned the f/2 lens, and from that point forward, we started having a slightly compromised f/1.4 versus somewhat better f/2. Again, your choice of faster or slower played a role in which you chose.
Fast forwarding to the Z era, Nikon is now making a 35mm f/1.2 and a 35mm f/1.8, so that similar slow/fast bit is still present, with another choice (f/1.4) in the middle.
This pattern is observable across brands, and across focal lengths, though sometimes it takes a while before what happens with a single optic becomes clearly what's happening across all. Given the press releases and the sneak peaks that have come across my desk recently, I believe that we've hit another of those inflection points: f/1.2 is the new fast lens in most mounts, replacing f/1.4.
Before I get to some supporting evidence for that statement, let's recap what apertures really do:
- f/1.2 — let's call this our new "baseline"
- f/1.4 — half stop slower (-0.5EV)
- f/1.8 — one and a third stops slower (-1.3EV)
- f/2 — one and a half stops slower (-1.5EV)
- f/2.8 — two and a half stops slower (-2.5EV)
The point where I call "a change has occurred" is when multiple vendors start doing the same thing across multiple focal lengths. Canon now has multiple f/1.2 primes, Nikon now has multiple f/1.2 primes, while Fujifilm and Sony both have one. Plus we have third party vendors such as Surui and Viltrox with multiple f/1.2 APS-C primes and Viltrox now tackling full frame. Cosina (Voigtlander) has one f/1.2 full frame lens and appears to be about to launch additional ones. I'd say we're now clearly in the f/1.2 era, leaving the f/1.4 decades behind.
The interesting thing this time is many of these new fast lenses, if not most, are attempting to remove the old "fast but low contrast" reputation that the fastest prime in a lineup previously had. Nikon's three f/1.2 primes are extraordinarily good wide open. Stop them down a half to a full stop and they go from being really good optics to being best in class. The penalty for that is size, weight, and price.
I actually that's a pretty good compromise. If you're really in need of that extra half stop, you're already in the category of "wanting the best." So getting best aperture, best optical performance, but paying a price for that seems about right. The f/1.4 (and f/1.8) optics are becoming more mainstream, but with some compromise. Again, using the current 35mm Nikon choices, it seems to go about like this:
- 35mm f/1.2 S (US$2799) — best light gathering, best optical performance (at equivalent apertures, and fine optical performance wide open), but size and weight are significantly higher, and these lenses are at premium prices.
- 35mm f/1.4 (US$529) — note the lack of an "S", meaning this isn't one of Nikon's higher end optics. For some reason they've chosen to make the f/1.4 lens their price leader at this focal length. Here we're at "good" light gathering, decent optical performance (need to stop down to pull in corners), and lowest price.
- 35mm f/1.8 S (US$849) — less light gathering, near best optical performance, moderate in size, weight, in price (compared to the others).
Note: I picked the 35mm focal length because of its really long history (I could have picked 50mm, as well).
This new f/1.2 era is partly the result of Canon and Nikon fully committing to a mirrorless future in 2018. Specifically in Nikon's case, they went from the most constrictive mount to design for to being the least restrictive, which was one of the things that gave them the ability to consider f/1.2 high performance primes.
We're seeing a similar thing starting to happen with zooms, where f/2.8 was once considered the baseline "fast." We now have just enough f/2 zooms poking their heads out of the design rooms to guess that f/2 will soon become the new zoom baseline, but I'm not ready to call that yet, as we're also been seeing focal range compromises on these new lenses, which means the lens makers haven't fully bought into replacing the f/2.8 trios with f/2 ones.
