Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
Customer Review: A lens that is a must have for budget beginners.....
Summary: 5 Stars
...and even for the pro-amateurs.
I personally just started into the DSLR game with my Rebel XT (body only) and purchased two lenses, the Canon 28-135mm IS USM and the 50mm f/1.8 II.
While the 28-135 is decent, that's a completely different story.
As for the 50mm f/1.8, it's a terrific lense in all aspects. Where else can you get a VERY inexpensive, sharp, and relatively fast lense that you can shoot in low light conditions. I mean there simply are no other lenses that touch it in it's price point. Being that I had already dumped quite a bit of money to start this hobby. What is another $70 bucks compared to all those other high dollar lenses.
While it can be soft wide open, this lense really shines at around f/8.0 rivaling lenses costing 10x the price. And the bokeh (background blur) that it produces is quite nice. It's great for portraits and candids but just make sure that you keep it relatively bright or else you'll find yourself switching to manual focus. While it can't zoom, that is a good thing as primes (single focal length) lenses always yield sharper images and it's a cheap experiment into the world of primes (trust me I've considerd going straight primes after viewing images from this lense compared to my 28-135mm)
Overall it's a great lense for the money especially for beginners such as myself. Yes it may not have the greatest body or mount but this a great learning tool and stepping stone into more advanced and expensive (if you even need to go that way) lenses.
Give it a try as it is definitely an inexpensive diamond in the rough.
Customer Review: Why would you NOT buy this lens?
Summary: 5 Stars
I can only think of two reasons to NOT buy this lens:
1. You do not own a Canon DSLR
2. You own a Canon DSLR, but you (foolishly) spent the extra money and have the f1.4 or the f1.2 version of this lens.
Eighty-five bucks! You might spend that much on the new SDHC cards you'll need for your Canon DSLR!
The other reviewers give a full and excellent overview of the qualities and limitations of this lens. I'll echo the following points:
- It is NOT EXPENSIVE!
- It is really fast! f1.8 is a whole new UNIVERSE if you are coming from ANY point-and-shoot! (And the extra speed when you go to f1.4 or f1.2 is pretty much meaningless.)
- In the APC-C world, this lens is a REALLY COOL portrait lens. You gotta use this lens for taking pictures of babies, children, friends, parents, presidents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, corpses, pets, flowers, the North Star, etc.
- While the f1.8 setting is (really) soft, you stop it down a little and you have a superb lens! Try this: Stop it down to f22, put it on a tripod and take a picture of any still-life scene (flowers, Channukah candles, Christmas trees, your neighbor's I-want-you-to-be-able-to-read-by-the-strands-of-light-that-outline-my house, any city street). You'll love the results.
- One oddity. I am used to having a UV filter on my lenses all the time. This does not work very well on this lens, especially on these tripod pictures like city streets--there are some bad internal reflections of the bright spots.
Did I say that you gotta have this lens? Yeah.
Customer Review: Great Starter Lens, with a Caveat
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently bought the Rebel XTi, and decided to follow prevailing wisdom by abandoning the kit lens. I bought this lens instead, and have been very happy with the results. If you are just starting out with photography (like me), you will be incredibly happy with the results. I get crystal clear images, amazing bokeh (esp. when the aperture is at its widest), and beautiful vivid colors.
The caveat is that on the XTi, the EF 50mm f/1.8 II is an excellent *portrait* lens. The XTi does not have a full-frame sensor; rather, its sensor effectively crops the shot at a factor of 1.6. That means that with the 50mm focal length, what you are really getting is an 80 mm perspective, which falls into the telephoto range. This means that this lens is a less than ideal "walking around" lens when used with crop-format bodies like the XTi. By no means does this fact reduce the value of this lens, but if you aren't aware of this from the beginning it can be a little frustrating at first. I plan on getting a lens with a shorter focal length, preferably short enough to actually give me a wide-angle perspective on the XTi body (~17mm). If you really want to use the XTi for everyday walkaround shots, you might have to make do with the kit lens, or pay more for a good lens with a wider perspective.
That being said, I *love* this lens. My portrait shots are amazing, with beautiful bokeh, extremely crisp, etc. Even the landscapes do not exactly suffer; it is simply a matter of finding the right POV. To sum it up, I definitely have no regrets with this lens - just wisdom that I would like to share :)
Customer Review: Absolute Best Value in the EOS Line-Up!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I simply cannot stress this enough; every EOS owner should buy this lens!!! 50mm is a great focal length for portrait and all-around shooting on a 1.6x cropped DSLR such as the 20d or Rebel XT. Kit lens users have probably notice that they do most of there shooting on or near the 55mm long end, so this is a very natural substitution.
The f/1.8 aperture allows you to take professional looking pictures in low light that rival L-series zoom lenses costing over 10 times more! The wide aperture also gives the background a nice professional looking soft-focus, but this comes at a price. When shooting at f/2.8 and especially f/1.8 you need to be VERY careful with focus. Set the active focus point directly on the subject's eyes to get the clearest picture and if you are taking two people together then make sure they are about the same distance from the lens. If there is more then about 6 inches difference then one will start to loose facial features due to blur. Of coerce you can always go down to f/4.0, to get around that issue, but doing so kind of misses the point on this lens.
If you normally buy UV filters for your lens you should consider skipping it for this one. First, you probably don't have any 52mm filters and there isn't much point in buying one to protect a $70 lens. The front element is about 1/2" from the front the lens, which effectively gives you a built-in hood for some protection. On top of that, you are probably not taking this lens outside so dust is much less of an issue.
Anyway, stop reading and just BUY IT!!! You will love it!
Customer Review: An outstanding quality lens for the money - built like a cheap toy.
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought an almost new Canon 30d to go with a 5d, and it came with this lens.
I thought I'd just sell it on Craiglist or Flea-Bay, but then I shot with it. Wow. For $89.00, this is one great lens.
This thing is light plastic. It seriously feels like a kids toy lens. It has zero heft to it, and is cheap, black, super-light plastic. It is so convenient and light that I often put it on my 5d and use it as a walk-around lens. I also have shot some portraits with it. It is very sharp, and has nice Bokeh when wide open. And, at F/1.8 - it is FAST compared to any zoom lens.
My only beef is its lack of USM autofocus with full-time manual capability - but I have no right to complain - for the money, it is absolutely great as is. I'm just spoiled from using my USM L glass.
My main lens is my 24-70 F/2.8 L USM...it is a tack-sharp awesome piece of engineering, and my favorite lens of all time, but it is over $1200 and it weighs a ton (See my Amazon review). Sometimes it is nice just to put this little guy on and forget the camera is around my neck...like when hiking, etc., or when I want to fit my camera into a small bag.
I'll eventually step up to the F/1.4 with USM at just shy of four bills if I break this little cheapie. Until then, I am enjoying its excellent photos.
If you have an extra body laying around, and you have a kid that wants to learn to shoot, stap one of these on there and let them fire away.
Really, for the money, this little lens cannot be beat. That is why I gave it 5 stars.