Five times cheaper than the alternative, this new super-fast Canon lens opens up a new world for my creative photography

Shallow depth of field dandelion flowers.

I’m loving the new Canon RF 45mm f/1.2 STM! It’s lots of fun to shoot with super wide apertures around f/1.2 for everything from creative landscapes with blurry backgrounds, to close-ups of flowers with dreamy blur behind.

The RF 45mm F1.2 STM lens was launched at the same time as the Canon EOS R6 Mark III in November 2025 and “Designed for storytellers looking to elevate their creativity.” They got that right.

Most impressively, however, it offers a much more affordable f/1.2 standard lens than we've ever seen before. Before the RF 45mm F1.2 STM, the super-fast f/1.2 aperture was exclusive to pro prime lenses costing fives times more! For example, the RF 50mm F1.2L USM was launched in 2018 to show off the first EOS R mirrorless camera’s potential. This is a high-quality L-series lens, with the desirable f/1.2 wide aperture, but comes with a high-quality price of $2,599 / £2,589.

The RF 45mm F1.2 STM is obviously it’s not an L-series, and ‘only’ STM, it’s also a budget plastic build (with metal mounts) which all keeps the price down to below $500 / £500.

It’s been a pleasure to spend time shooting with the Canon EOS R6 Mark III and RF 45mm F1.2 STM. The fixed focal length means you need to ‘zoom with your feet’ but this just means you can get closer to your scenes or subjects, open the aperture as wide as you dare, and embrace the blur!

The Canon RF 45mm F1.2 STM has made the magic f/1.2 aperture more affordable for enthusiasts (Image credit: Peter Travers)

Normally I’d shoot at f/8 or f/11 for a large depth of field so whole landscape scenes are sharp. So it has made a refreshing change to shoot at f/1.2 and f/2 with the Canon RF 45mm f/1.2 STM prime lens for a very shallow depth of field and artistic blur, even in big scenes like this.

f/8 At a usual f/8 aperture, almost all of this landscape scene is sharp, even when focusing at foreground flower heads (Image credit: Peter Travers)

f/1.2 By using a very wide f/1.2 aperture, it's created a dreamy scene full of creative blur (Image credit: Peter Travers)

The same lens is also awesome and sharp for close-ups, such as these dandelion heads in the two photos below, thanks to its minimum focus distance of only 45cm. Note how much more blur you get at f/1.2 compared to f/2.8. It's easy to forget that f/1.2 is more than 2-stops wider than f/2.8!

This means it's allows more than five times more light into the lens, which is why these fast lenses are great for shooting in low light conditions as you can get fast shutter speeds to shoot handheld without worry.

f/1.2 Getting close to focus on this dandelion head shows off how sharp the RF 45mm F1.2 STM lens is, and how much beautiful bokeh blur you get at very wide f/1.2... (Image credit: Peter Travers)

f/2.8 ...compared to using a wide aperture of 'only' f/2.8 the background isn't nearly as blurred, which means the flower head doesn't stand out from its surroundings as well (Image credit: Peter Travers)

It’s Canon’s first f/1.2 aperture non-professional RF lens, weighing under 350g and at a great price point, it’s a very attractive and affordable lens.

It’s also the ideal lens to take more creative photos by utilising the wide apertures to capture a very shallow depth of field, with lots of lovely blur and bokeh!

Thanks to the EOS R6 Mark III’s AI AF, it’s easier than ever to get your focusing spot on, which is crucial when working with such a thin slither of sharpness at around f/1.2.

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