Digital Cameras Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘50mm Lens’

Canon EF 50mm f 1 8 II Camera Lens

This is the lightest EF lens of all at a mere 4.6 oz. (130g). Compact and high-performance, standard lens. Its Gaussian optics provide sharp delineation from near to far focusing distances. The color balance is excellent for a standard lens.

The Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II may be one of the cheapest lenses currently on the market, but its optics belie its lowly price. As befits a classic standard prime lens, it’s very sharp when stopped down (especially in the centre), shows minimal chromatic aberration, and has relatively low distortion; APS-C users will also benefit from extremely low vegetating. In most regards it comes very close indeed to its much more expensive bigger brother, the EF 50mm F1.4 USM, lagging marginally behind in corner sharpness at any specific aperture. The only real blight in imaging terms is the lens’s bloke, or rendition of out-of-focus backgrounds, which is anything but smooth with a distinct tendency to render bright highlights as obvious pentagons (it’s a pity Canon didn’t choose to use a diaphragm with 7 or 8 blades instead of 5).

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Light, fast, but not useful focal length on cropped-sensors
Chances are you’re looking at this lens as an inexpensive first prime to go with your non-pro DSLR, like I did.

I tried it on my Canon EOS Rebel T1i 15.1 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3-Inch LCD and EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens, and loved its size and speed, but the crop-factor made it not very useful.

What’s important to know is that many DSLRs use a cropped sensor (check wikipedia for “Crop Factor” for details). On Canon Rebels (and 40/50D), the crop factor is 1.6, meaning a 50mm lens gets cropped down to the equivalent of an 80mm (50mm x 1.6). 80mm is a medium telephoto, which I almost never want to use. 80mm is not enough telephoto for detail shots at distance, but you’d have to stand across the room to get a portrait of more than a face. Since I primarily wanted a portrait lens, this didn’t work for me, though I did use it to take some very nice landscapes.

I found the lens very fast. Its AF is a bit louder than the T1i’s kit lens (18-55 f/3.5-5.6), but the resulting images were notably crisper than the kit lens. Images are soft at f/1.8 end of the range but looked great at f/2 and narrower. Using Av and a wide aperture worked very well for low-light nighttime shots, although there was still blur for moving subjects.

I don’t think it’s fair or useful to compare it to L-glass lenses 5-15x the price like many reviews did. It’s very lightweight, barely adding any weight to my camera. The fast lens with a big aperture provides lot of flexibility when it comes to variable lighting. And it’s cheap. If anything, I wish Canon made more inexpensive prime lenses for those of us who don’t need or can’t afford L-series glass.

Since I needed something closer to 50mm in actual use, I returned this one and am going to try the Canon EF 35mm f/2 Wide Angle Lens for Canon SLR Cameras.

I rate this 4 stars for doing what it’s supposed to do, and doing so very well, but being a less useful effective focal length on cropped-sensor cameras.

3 Stars Ok for $100, but I should have waited and gotten the F1.4
This lens is OK, considering the price. The main problem I have with it is the focus. Sometimes it doesn’t focus on the point that its supposed to. It also seems like it needs a lot of light to actually focus. Also it looks cheap, but then again it was only $100. If I were to do it again, I’d wait/save a little more and get the Canon 50mm F1.4 instead. It has a bigger aperture, and the USM so I’m assuming the focus would be MUCH better.

5 Stars Incredible lens for the money
If you are looking for great quality shots at an affordable price, this is the lens for you. No its not the “Prime” so to speak with the quality being on the weak side, but the technology is on the “Prime” side. I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a fixed lens and superb quality shots. I do shoot with Prime “L” lenses and purchased this to test before purchasing the 50 mm f/1.4 and can say I am very pleased with it and will be shooting with it for quite some time.

4 Stars Sharp, beautiful photographs
I picked this up a couple of years ago for Rebel when I wanted to try fixed lenses. I still pull it out from time to time. I am not a professional by any stretch, but I really do like this lens. It’s great for when you want to get a crisp, clear photograph and have time to set up the shot without using zoom.

I still grab my standard zoom lens more often, but this makes a great hobby lens for taking portrait types of shots.

5 Stars Great, with a caveat
This is a great lens, allowing you to take sharp pictures without having to carry around big zoom lenses. If you have a cropped-frame body (e.g., XTi, 50D), though, it does become an awkward telephoto lens; so consider the 35mm or 28mm as well.

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