Canon FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. Aspherical

Canon built this to win an arms race. When the F-1 system came together in the early 1970s, Canon wanted a flagship normal lens that did something Nikon and the rest could not, so they ground an aspherical surface onto the front meniscus of a double-Gauss design and put it in production. The aspherical 55mm f/1.2 first shipped as the FD 55mm f/1.2 AL in 1971, and that lens is what made the reputation. The multicoated S.S.C. Aspherical reviewed here arrived later in the FD run, after the plain S.S.C. spherical version, and it is the one collectors hunt while the ordinary 55mm f/1.2 is the one everybody else owns. An accurate glass asphere is hard to make at all, which is why any version of this lens trades above the plain spherical normals, and why the early hand-polished AL copies in particular fetch eye-watering prices.

The point of the asphere is what happens at f/1.2. Spherical aberration is what turns most fast normals into a soft, glowing mess wide open, and this lens largely holds it in check. Open it all the way and the center is genuinely sharp with real contrast, not the dreamy haze you get from the non-aspherical 55mm f/1.2 or the FL before it. Corners lag, as they should at this speed, and there is field curvature, so do not expect a flat test chart. Stop down to f/2.8 or f/4 and it tightens into a clinical performer.

The out-of-focus rendering is clean and smooth, with soft edge transitions rather than the busy double-line you find on cheaper fast glass. Bright points toward the frame edge cat-eye and swirl the way every f/1.2 does through a narrow FD throat, so a backdrop of foliage or city lights at the corners will lean toward that mechanical-vignette look wide open. Flare control is decent for early-70s coatings; the S.S.C. multicoating helps against backlight, though a strong source just outside the frame will still lift the shadows.

Who reaches for it now: portrait and low-light shooters adapting it to mirrorless, plus video people who want a fast normal with character but without the heavy swirl of a Helios. Cross-shopped against the Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 and Canon's own much cheaper 55mm and 50mm f/1.4, it wins on rendering and loses badly on price. The aspherical sells for well above the plain spherical 55mm f/1.2, and you are paying for the badge and the wide-open behavior, not for anything you would notice at f/8; if you want the truly steep collector premium, that is the early hand-ground AL, not this one.

The honest weakness is the aperture mechanism and age, not the optics. These are fifty-year-old lenses with oily blades and hazing on some samples, and a clean Aspherical copy is hard to find at any price. Practically, the reason you bought it is f/1.2, so use it there. In a dim room or a bar, meter wide open in Zone Light Meter rather than trusting a stopped-down reading and opening up by feel; the extra stop and a half over an f/2 normal is the entire point, and you want your exposure built around the aperture you are actually shooting. The 58mm front thread takes standard filters if you want ND to hold that aperture in daylight.