The first word that comes to my mind when thinking about this lens is "elegance". It looks elegant and it delivers an elegant image rendering and color balance.

Like most vintage Yashinon lenses, it is prone to flaring when shooting against the light, but personally I like to think of flares as a creative tool, not as a problem. 

​The aperture of 1.4 makes it great to use in  low light situations, even if sharpness isn't at its best then. It is definitely very usable, but it would need to be stopped down to f2 to produce a more contrasty image.

This is probably the reason why the Auto Yashinon 5cm f2 is so popular, because its performance is already top at its widest aperture and it's small and compact. This said, this is a different design, similar to the Zeiss Planar and it's bigger in size.

This optic is also radioactive, its glass contains Thorium dioxide, an element used from the 1940s to the 1970s to create a high refractive index and low dispersion, significantly reducing chromatic aberrations for sharper, higher-quality images.

​​​​​

Why use the Auto Yashinon DX 50mm f1.4:

1) Unique Yashinon rendering

2) Sharpness

3) Bright aperture of f1.4

4) Smooth, painterly background blur

5) Unique flares

6) 3D Pop

7) Sturdy, exceptional quality construction, made by Tomioka Kōgaku K.K.

​

Weaknesses:

Minimum focusing distance of 0.60m

​