Originally posted by monochrome I had one for about a year. I had a Buy/Try/Sell fetish where I wanted to have every legendary Pentax MF lens I could never afford when they were new, at least have them for a while, so I would know I had. I sold it because I didn't want to have that much money tied up in one lens. It was either
only the K50/1.2 or
no K50/1.2 and many other 50's.
IMHO (and I will likely attract contrary opinion here) the f/1.2 merely allows you a slightly thinner DoF (@10ft on 35mm film, 0.86 feet vs. 1.02 ft for f/1.4), so your subject can be slightly closer to OOF foreground and background elements and thus achieve isolation or the 3D effect in more settings (closer to backgrounds, for instance). In my case it was very difficult to achieve necessary critical focus in an APSc viewfinder (because I have old eyes and an eye disease), where you only get a tiny bit more than 6" of DoF with either lens at 10 ft. At 5 ft you get about an inch with both lenses, so it is really neither easier nor harder to use the f/1.2 lens than the f/1.4.
On APSc I thought the CoC was so thin wide open (0.02mm) that it wasn't really useable. I'm sure the lens was better in this regard on 135 film. I tend to do my best with bokeh at f/5.6, which is also where most of my lenses get really good. At 10 feet @ f/5.6 you get about 2.75 ft APSc and 4.25ft 135. The standard I was taught is:
- 100mm lens, 10 feet @ f/5.6 on 135 = 1 foot DoF
The actual quality of the OOF highlights is more the result of the specific lens design, the glass and the number of aperture leaves, whatever the largest aperture of the lens.
I still believe the real advantage of the f/1.2 lenses is low light focusing.
Personally, I find the real draw to the 1.2's are how they render things. They just have a different look to them, almost dreamy and others have called them painterly. I have 1.4's also, but I do like the unique look of the 1.2's.
Others have also noted that a 1.2 shot at 1.4 will be sharper than a 1.4 at 1.4 or even at 2.0. So if you need to shoot with a wide aperture like 1.4, a 1.2 could give you results that are more in line with what the photographer wants.
Here's the 1.2 lens club thread which has some great shots from the Pentax as well as the Cosinas:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/lens-clubs/74819-post-your-1-2-photos-1-2-only.html