Once upon a time the 50 mm lens was THE standard camera lens and was THE optical benchmark by which manufacturers were judged and compared. Although the basic lens focus has now shifted (at least at the low to mid amateur level) to zooms - you can still benefit from years of research and development that went into designing the 50 mm lens and this here lens may be the best lens, dollar for dollar, that you can ever buy. The question is can you afford not to own this lens?
Years of development have brought us a lens that has a fast aperture of 1.8 - far faster than any consumer zoom lens - and that is sharp as a filed tack. Be forewarned about the sharpness . . . if you are taking pictures of people, this lens is unyielding in its sharpness and may well surprise you and your subjects whose every blemish is captured. The lens has a fabulously shallow depth of field if you want to use the 1.8 aperture to blow out a background. This lens is also ridiculously inexpensive. It is not USM - so it is a little loud. It does not have a moving focus scale. For the money though - this is heaven.
As to the build quality - yes, it is plastic. No, it's not built like the Rock of Gibraltar. If you are going to give this lens extensive use as your everyday lens and you shoot a lot, it may not hold up all that well as one reviewer suggests. However, I've now had this lens and used it fairly regularly (although not as the primary lens) for about 8 years and it is still in great condition. In my mind, spend the $$ on this first before you go and drop $330 on the 50mm 1.4 USM lens and I think you'll find it gets the job done nicely and that the extra $250 on the 1.4 may not be worth the difference in build (major difference), speed (minor difference) and image quality (minor difference). Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
Wow! My theory now is that Canon doesn't put this baby as their kit lens because many people would decide that they DONT NEED ANOTHER ONE! And many of them would be right!
Like others, I bought the Rebel XT and the 28-135 IS lens. The 28-135 is heavy and priced like a gold brick. I guess it does OK, and I do keep it mounted most of the time.
And like others, I stumbled on this lens somehow, read the raving reviews, and for the price figured, "What the heck?"
This lens in tack sharp. It shows the fire in the colors you photograph. The wide aperture means candles can be excellent lights for portraits. Its narrow field is great.
There are pitfalls though. I snapped a pic of my face at arm's length using autofocus a while back and (1) the focus locked on the tip of my nose and my face was already blurring (2) the lens was so sharp that I saw blackheads clearly on my nose tip I can't really see in the mirror (doh!). I've read that dSLR images are slightly soft to aid in later editing. I can only imagine what it would do on a film camera.
Yesterday while camping I slapped this lens on. Unlike the 28-135, this one is light enough that I didnt notice I was carrying a camera everywhere. At night I put the lens on the top of the car pointed at the sky, set the shutter for 15 secs, and hit the button. Much to my amazement, the lens not only showed hundreds of stars that were invisible to my eyes, but it also found a galaxy. That pic is on the customer image section of this page. You can see what I saw, but the smaller size doesnt do the lens justice.
One quirk of Amazon is that this page keeps alternating pictures of lenses. This lens does not have the distance focus scales on the outside of it.
Zoom is nice for many things. But where zoom isnt necessary, performance is very, very nice. Performance at $70 is almost too good to be true.
Let me close by repeating what has been said elsewhere and will continue to be said here....IF YOU OWN A SLR, STOP NOW AND GET THIS LENS!
UPDATE 12/06 I have owned this lens for about a year now. Over that time I have immersed myself in photography, workshops, books, tests, etc. I have since upgraded to the 30D and a couple of L lenses, and now have a portfolio strong enough that I am now getting dollar signs thrown at me that I didnt even see coming. I say all this to give you some perspective on what I will write afterward.
Now that Ive really learned the difference, I can agree with others that it is a tad soft wide open, but that is to be expected. I read a lens test recently that put the 1.8 against Canons heavweight L glass, and, not surprisingly, the L beat out the $70 plastic wonder in most categories. What might surprise you, however, is that when the lens was tested at F 8 it BEAT THE L GLASS in sharpness! As one that has felt the pain of trading large sums of money for L glass, I appreciate affordable quality...not something anyone can plan on seeing much of in photography.
My 28-135 has since joined my kit lens in the garage. The 1.8 is still in my case with my newer 30D.
With some experience under my belt I now would make the following recommendation. Right now, as you read this, you may have an idea if you've been bitten by the photog bug. You may know that this beast is going to morph into something more than a simple pasttime. If you look inside the depths of your aspirations and you know that you are going to be a serious amateur, bite the bullet and get the 50mm 1.4. Trust me on this one. Eventually you'll end up getting it anyway, so just apply the $70 to the 1.4 now.
If you're just exploring different areas of SLR photography, you cant go wrong with this lens. Case in point- as of this writing the baby in pink in the customer images section of this lens is one of the top-ten rated images of all pics uploaded on Amazon! This lens will allow you to dazzle friends and relatives used to snapshots from point & shoots. It will be the start of what you upgraded to a DSLR for in the first place. For you, the 1.8 is still, by far, the best value in photography!'
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