Really Fast lenses

Fast Canon Lenses

2mm of the lens barrel was milled off at a machine shop

Fast lenses are expensive. Canon's EF 50mm F1.2L and 135mm F2.0 are well over $1000 each.  Photographers covet fast lenses for their light gathering ability as well as the shallow dept of field. 

I happen to have some old, inexpensive, Canon manual focus lenses from my film days. Not sure the  paper thin depth of field is a good thing, at least I didn't have to spend much money on these lenses. 

Photography is a funny thing, it appeals to tech geeks like myself and yet almost all real artists (as implied by the price of their work) are not technicians, in fact most "artists" claim to be ignorant of the technical aspect of photography. There's simply no hope for engineers, even supremely technical photographer Ansel Adams started out as a classical pianist.

Here's some shots with the Canon FD135 F2.0:

With the older Canon FL 55mm F1.2:

This is how thin the DoF of the 55/1.2 is, only one eye is in focus.

Apologies to the reluctant models.