Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

FD 55mm f/1.2

Canon · Canon FD · 1971

single source, unconfirmed via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: Canon FD 55mm f/1.2 · Canon FD 55mm 1:1.2 · Canon Lens FD 55mm 1:1.2 · FD 55mm f1.2 · FD 55/1.2 · Canon 55mm f/1.2 FD · キヤノン FD 55mm F1.2 · キャノン FD 55mm F1.2

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
FD 55mm f/1.2, chrome nose (1971) · Double Gauss, 7 elements in 5 groups Canon FD 1971–1973 — —
FD 55mm f/1.2 AL (1971) · Double Gauss with a ground aspherical surface on the front of the second element, 8 elements in 6 groups, with a floating system for close focus Canon FD 1971–1973 — —
FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. (1973) · Double Gauss, 7 elements in 5 groups Canon FD 1973–1980 — —
FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. AL (1973) · Double Gauss with a ground aspherical surface, 8 elements in 6 groups, floating system Canon FD 1973–1975 — —
FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. Aspherical (1975) · Double Gauss with a ground aspherical surface, 8 elements in 6 groups, floating system Canon FD 1975–1980 — —
  1. Which versions carry thorium. Wikipedia states that the AL incorporated thoriated glass, and two independent Geiger-counter reports concern the S.S.C. Aspherical: s58y's on Flickr and Wikimedia Commons ("radioactive, especially at the front", about 1.4 times the counts of a Takumar 50mm f/1.4 measured at its rear) and Hernk's Journal (46,532 counts per minute at the front element). The 7-element S.S.C. rests on one test: Lens Legend's reviewer checked a sample and reported it not radioactive, and no other test of a 7-element lens was found. That is the single-source claim on this page and the reason for the badge. No test of the 1971 chrome-nose lens was found at all; it shares the S.S.C.'s optical layout, and nothing more can be said.
  2. End dates. The Canon Camera Museum gives marketing months, never discontinuations. The 1973 close of the chrome nose and the AL, and the 1975 close of the S.S.C. AL, are the launch months of the lenses that replaced them, taken from the museum's pages, not published end dates. The 1980 end of the family is Wikipedia's ("manufactured from March 1971 through 1980"), and JAPB gives 1973 to 1980 for the S.S.C.
  3. "First aspherical". The Canon Camera Museum is the source Wikipedia cites for the claim that this was the first aspherical lens for any 35mm SLR. mir.com.my calls it the world's first photographic lens with an aspherical element and adds in a footnote that Nikon's 10mm OP Fisheye-Nikkor had an aspherical surface earlier, for scientific work. The narrower claim, first mass-produced aspherical lens for an SLR, is the one carried here.
  4. Specifications. All the figures in the table are the Canon Camera Museum's. Canon Classics gives the same figures except a weight of 510g for the S.S.C., and JAPB weighs an S.S.C. at 508g; the museum's 565g is used, the lower weights being from individual samples. Wikipedia's FD lens mount table gives 1m close focus for these lenses where the museum, Wikipedia's own article on the AL and Canon Classics all give 0.6m; 0.6m is used.
  5. Coating. Wikipedia records that the 1971 AL used the same multilayer coating as the 1975 Aspherical, so S.S.C. on the name ring from 1973 marks the engraving rather than a change in the glass. mir.com.my says the same: Super Spectra Coating on the AL was unusual when most early FD lenses were single-coated.
  6. Prices. The five yen prices are the museum's, and the AL price of 145,000 yen is quoted "with case and hood". No dollar list price has been found.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Two optics in five barrels. Seven elements in five groups is the ordinary lens (chrome nose 1971, S.S.C. 1973); eight in six with the aspherical surface is the AL (1971), S.S.C. AL (1973) and S.S.C. Aspherical (1975). The name ring says which.
  • Chrome filter ring means 1971 to 1973; black filter ring with S.S.C. in red and a chrome lock button on the aperture ring means 1973 on. All five are breech-lock: there was never a New FD 55mm f/1.2, the bayonet line replacing it with the New FD 50mm f/1.2 and 50mm f/1.2 L.
  • The aspherical barrels are 55mm long against 52.5mm, and the AL and Aspherical are the ones that yellow: an amber cast through the lens against white paper is thorium, not fungus or balsam.
  • 58mm filter, eight blades, f/16 and 0.6m close focus on every version

FD 55mm f/1.2, chrome nose (1971):

  • Chrome (silver) filter ring at the front of the barrel; no coating designation engraved on the name ring
  • Breech-lock mount with the knurled chrome locking ring; no chrome lock button on the aperture ring
  • Barrel 52.5mm long, 565g, with no ASPHERICAL or AL engraving

FD 55mm f/1.2 AL (1971):

  • AL engraved on the name ring, for Aspherical Lens; chrome filter ring like the other 1971 lens
  • Barrel 55mm long against 52.5mm for the 7-element lens, and the heaviest of the family at 605g
  • Thoriated glass: check for an amber cast by looking through the lens at a white sheet

FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. (1973):

  • S.S.C. in red on the name ring; black filter ring; chrome lock button on the aperture ring
  • Same 7-element optic and the same 52.5mm, 565g barrel as the chrome nose
  • Not thoriated: Lens Legend tested a sample and found no radioactivity¹

FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. AL (1973):

  • S.S.C. in red and AL on the name ring; black filter ring; chrome lock button on the aperture ring
  • 55mm long and 575g: 30g lighter than the 1971 AL in the same optical layout

FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. Aspherical (1975):

  • ASPHERICAL spelled out on the name ring beside S.S.C. in red; black filter ring
  • 55mm long, 575g, 8 elements: the same glass as the S.S.C. AL under a new name
  • Thoriated front glass; the front element reads hotter on a Geiger counter than the rear, and yellows with age

Serial-range notes

the date code on the rear plate, a letter and three or four digits
Canon FD lenses are dated from the code stamped on the rear plate rather than from serial tables, which no source consulted prints for this family. In the format used 1960 to 1986 the letter is the year (A = 1960, so L = 1971, N = 1973, P = 1975, U = 1980), the first digit or two the month, and the last two digits of unknown purpose. Alan Watson Forster's example is N501 for May 1973. He cautions that the code may record the date the lens passed inspection rather than its assembly, since some codes run slightly later than the serial sequence.
any serial
No serial-number ranges or production totals have been published for any of the five versions in the sources consulted. The name ring and the date code are the way to place a lens.

Specifications

Formula
Double Gauss, 7 elements in 5 groups; the AL and Aspherical versions add an eighth element and a ground aspherical surface, 8 elements in 6 groups
Construction
8 elements / 6 groups
Aperture range
f/1.2–f/16
Diaphragm blades
8
Min. focus
0.6 m
Dimensions
75.8 × 55 mm
Weight
575 g
Filter
58 mm
Years manufactured
1971–1980
Country
Japan
Coating
Multilayer on the aspherical versions from 1971, engraved S.S.C. (Super Spectra Coating) from 1973; the 7-element lens engraved S.S.C. from 1973
Original price
¥39,000 (chrome nose, March 1971); ¥145,000 with case and hood (AL, March 1971); ¥50,000 (S.S.C., 1973); ¥147,000 (S.S.C. AL, 1973); ¥80,000 (S.S.C. Aspherical, 1975) (today ¥128,000–¥478,000)

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

Aggregated from the reviews above — follow the links for the full picture.

Chromatic aberration
strong wide open
Spherical aberration
glow at f/1.2
Optical formula — Double Gauss, 7 elements in 5 groups; the AL and Aspherical versions add an eighth element and a ground aspherical surface, 8 elements in 6 groups
FD 55mm f/1.2 AL: 8 elements in 6 groups, the aspherical surface on the front of the second element. Redrawn by Jake Low from Canon's published illustration
FD 55mm f/1.2 AL: 8 elements in 6 groups, the aspherical surface on the front of the second element. Redrawn by Jake Low from Canon's published illustration — Jake Low, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

History

The FD 55mm f/1.2 is the fast standard lens Canon launched with the F-1 in March 1971, and it came in two forms from the first day. The ordinary lens was a seven-element double Gauss in five groups at 39,000 yen. Beside it Canon sold the FD 55mm f/1.2 AL at 145,000 yen with its case and hood: eight elements in six groups, the front surface of the second element ground and polished to an aspherical curve so that the central and peripheral rays of the f/1.2 cone came to a single focus. It was the first mass-produced aspherical lens for a 35mm SLR, and the aspherical surface was then so laborious to make that it cost nearly four times the ordinary lens. mir.com.my adds that the AL was multicoated and had floating elements when most early FD lenses had neither, and Wikipedia confirms that the 1971 lens already carried the multilayer coating the barrel would only advertise later.

The barrels changed in March 1973, when the whole FD line lost its chrome filter ring and gained the S.S.C. engraving in red and a chrome lock button on the aperture ring. Both optics went into the new barrel: the seven-element lens became the FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. at 50,000 yen and the aspherical one the FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. AL at 147,000 yen, 30g lighter than the 1971 AL. Two years later, in March 1975, Canon renamed the aspherical lens once more, spelling ASPHERICAL out on the name ring, and cut its price to 80,000 yen. Five names, then, but two lenses: seven elements in the chrome nose and the S.S.C., eight with the aspherical surface in the AL, the S.S.C. AL and the S.S.C. Aspherical. All are breech-lock. There was never a New FD 55mm f/1.2; the bayonet line replaced it in 1980 with the New FD 50mm f/1.2 and the aspherical 50mm f/1.2 L, and Wikipedia gives 1980 as the end of the 55mm family.

Telling them apart is a matter of the name ring and a ruler. The chrome filter ring is 1971 to 1973. AL or ASPHERICAL means the eight-element lens, which is 55mm long against 52.5mm and, at 575 to 605g, heavier. Every version takes 58mm filters, has eight aperture blades, stops down to f/16 and focuses to 0.6m, so none of those settles anything. Canon dated FD lenses by a code stamped on the rear plate rather than by serial blocks: a letter for the year (A is 1960, so L is 1971 and U is 1980) followed by the month and two further digits, and no serial-number tables for this family have been published.

The aspherical versions are made with thoriated glass, and it matters when buying. s58y’s Geiger counter found the S.S.C. Aspherical radioactive “especially at the front”, and Hernk’s Journal measured 46,532 counts per minute at its front element; Wikipedia records the thorium in the AL and explains the amber cast as F-centres formed in the glass by thorium decay, reversible by exposure to ultraviolet light, including sunlight. A yellow AL or Aspherical held to white paper is normal for its age, not fungus, and can be bleached. The seven-element S.S.C., on the other hand, tested clean in Lens Legend’s hands; that is a single test, and no one has been found who put a Geiger counter on a chrome-nose lens.

Reviewers split along the same line. Of the seven-element lens, Lens Legend finds it soft with a glow at f/1.2, acceptably sharp by f/2 to f/2.8 and pin-sharp from f/4, with soap-bubble bokeh wide open; Lens Bubbles calls it pretty sharp at f/1.2 and extremely sharp from f/1.4; Chase Hagen, shooting a late 1979 example, sees severe spherochromatism wide open and values the lens for exactly that look. The Aspherical is a different proposition: Canon Classics’ contributors say a frame at f/1.2 is much sharper and more contrasty than any other 50mm of the period, and the MFlenses thread agrees on the centre while noting the edges lag even at f/5.6 and the bokeh can turn wild against busy backgrounds. One poster who owns both versions thinks the chrome-nose lens marginally sharper wide open and the aspherical better close up, which is where its floating system works. The aspherical lenses sell for several times the price of the seven-element ones, and a listing that says only “FD 55mm f/1.2” is almost always the latter.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the FD 55mm f/1.2
FD 55mm f/1.2 S.S.C. Aspherical, the 1975 version, photographed by s58y with a note on its thoriated front glass — s58y, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a FD 55mm f/1.2? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $270 across 39 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $230–$300). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 137 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-18. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: FD 24mm f/1.4 Aspherical / L · FD 35mm f/2 · FD 50mm f/1.2 / f/1.2 L · FD 50mm f/1.4 · FD 50mm f/1.8 · FD 85mm f/1.2 Aspherical / L

Sources (17)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.