Your Top Five 50mm lenses (RF)

[John E Earley]

Elmar 50mm f2.8 collapsible (sharp, fairly contrasty and compact)
Nikkor HC 50mm f2 (love the close focus)
Jupiter-3 50mm f2 ( optically good but not top tier and I never worry about anything happening to it)
Topcor S 5cm f2 (an amazingly sharp lens, nice contrast and color rendition, unusually smooth ergonomics)
Canon 50mm f1.4 (should have never sold it)

 

[agoglanian]

I've tried so many 50s, liked things about each one. Ultimately the one that I came back to was the 50mm Elmar-M. I think that means it's probably the one.

 

[Richard G]

50 Summicron v4 with the bear claw tab. The ergonomics are great. An unassuming workhorse.

50 DR Summicron. Somehow the colour rendition of this is fantastic. Photographing red roses requires this lens.

50 C Sonnar. Transformed completely my whole understanding of lenses. Emotion ++ especially black and white film, but it's great at anything.

50 Summilux version 2, my first lens, long gone. Dreamy at 1.4.

50 Elmar M 2.8. Compact, short focus throw, nice rendition. Gets a lot of use.

50 Elmar 3.5 (1932 uncoated and 1951 coated.). Very sharp, very straight, lovely OOF achievable despite 'slow' maximum aperture.

That's six or seven. Never mind.