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CorruptedSanit
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Registered: Jul 5, 2005
Location: United Arab Emirates
Posts: 1428
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Review Date: Jul 11, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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very sharp, light weight, fantastic value for price.
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Cons:
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the AF/MF switch feels loose, yet stiff
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As mentioned, excellent for portrair (shoulders and above), fantastic wide aperture value.
Cons: the AF/MF switch seems loose in the sense that I can jiggle it around in either AF/MF, but tryin to switch it from MF to AF or vice versa seems a little stiff. But for 75$, what more was I expecting?
Just because of it's price, I think every photographer should own one. Because its great value and as a thanks (financial thanks) to Canon for providing such great lenses.
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 Jul 11, 2005
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sivrajbm
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Registered: Mar 15, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2785
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Review Date: Jul 8, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $89.95
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Fast lens, good sharpness, price, lightweight
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Cons:
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other than plastic mount, none
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This lens is a decent lense. Fast focusing, sharp, lightweight.
I really don't care that it's all plastic, I care about the picture quality. This lense does a good job, not bad wide open. At about f2.5 and beyond this little sucker cooks. I can say I was very surprised, I tried and liked it so I'll keep it. One of the few Canon lenses that pasted my tests.
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Jul 8, 2005
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Kham
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Registered: Apr 20, 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 117
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Review Date: Jul 7, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $74.95
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Fast and Sharp, price !
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Cons:
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none
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everyone should have this lens
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Jul 7, 2005
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tritone
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Registered: Jul 5, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7
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Review Date: Jul 5, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Sharp, beautiful portrait lens. Great color. Nice out of focus (bokeh). Light weight.
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Cons:
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Build quality - but the fact that it is all plastic is over rated. For $75 it is an awesome lens and I can get over the plastic.
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This is a tremendous value. Don't blame softness on bad focus. This is the best value for your money anywhere.
Beautiful head and shoulder portraits. Nice color. Sharp.
The plastic isn't that bad, makes the lens light weight. I got used to the focus ring.
Use the do it yourself focus scale if you really need it. One of the other reviewers posted a link to that project.
I love this lens.
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Jul 5, 2005
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Andreads
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Registered: May 1, 2005
Location: Germany
Posts: 2
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Review Date: Jun 27, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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cheap, very sharp (starting from f/4), light
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Cons:
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terrible AF system, always hunts for focus in low light, soft under f/4, CA wide open, no hood, ugly
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One think I hate about this lens is the AF mechanism, specially in low light. If you have the time, the light and the patience you can make technically wonderful pics above f/4.
Yes, you can shoot at 1.8 with this lens, but when you are looking for perfection you will find that this lens give you soft pictures wide open. It's better at f/2.5... and much better at f/4.0
I'm trading it for a 85 f/1.8 USM for portraits
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Jun 27, 2005
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Rhys
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Registered: May 5, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 3578
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Review Date: Jun 27, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $90.00
| Rating: 6
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Pros:
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It's light and unobtrusive. It's reasonably sharp and has a nice fast aperture.
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Cons:
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Focussing could be better. At f1.8 it's noticable that the centre of the frame is sharper than the edges.
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I bought this to go along with my kit lens. I'd say the 18-55 is a bit sharper but not by much. I did a series of shots from f1.8 to f5.6 and found that by f2.8 sharpness had improved dramatically. At f5.6 it was beginning to look a shade soft. I didn't test below f5.6 because it wasn't a proper lens test - just a straw test.
Using a flash, however, shaprness really picked up at f5.6. I took a shot from about 4 feet away of my open wardrobe. I can see the weave of the fabric of my jackets and trousers. I was really quite impressed. Depth of field is very shallow so some of my tests could be flawed because I hand-held the camera.
On the whole - do I like or lump the lens? I'd say I quite like it and think it should do just fine as a portrait lens.
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Jun 27, 2005
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afred
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Registered: Mar 19, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 710
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Review Date: Jun 25, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $75.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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PRICE!! f/1.8
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Cons:
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plastic mount...
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For a couple bucks, there is not a body out there that shouldn't be matched with this lens. Unless you have the 1.4 or L, or even MK I. I shoot this lens only when i need to use that f/1.8-2.8 range. Social gatherings are where this shines. Low light areas, where you otherwise would have to flash your subjects, or hope you have a hand with a built in tripod. The lens is rather weak and light, but that doesnt bother me much. Get it, if you're in the market for anything even near the 50mm range.
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Jun 25, 2005
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amcomis
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Registered: Jun 16, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 496
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Review Date: Jun 21, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $65.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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very sharp, even (mostly) wide open, very light, great color/contrast
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Cons:
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plastic feel, plastic mount, no USM, loud, horrible manual focus ring, extending front element, high min focusing distance, 5 blade awkward aperature, no hood
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Great lens, a great spare or great for low light stuff. DOF is fun to play with. Can be combined with extension tubes for a great macro lens.
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Jun 21, 2005
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klam
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Registered: May 19, 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 1662
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Review Date: Jun 10, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Cheap price, fast aperture, low distortion, crisp photos, light-weight, small.
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Cons:
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Plastic and cheap construction, five blade aperture, noisy focus action, no built-in distance scale (though there is a nice DIY for that).
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In all honesty, there weren't many reasons for me to go out and get this lens. I have several lenses that cover the 50mm length, and one lens that is almost as fast.
Despite the reviews of cheap build quality, fixed focal length, noisy focus action, this lens still found a way into my camera bag, and apparently many other camera bags like mine!
Optically it is a fine lens. Photos taken with it are crisp and relatively distortion free. The fast aperture is tremendous fun, allowing you to play around with low available light and shallow DOF. For optimal sharpness, you should stop down a bit. I find F/2.8-4.0 good enough if you have limited light.
Build quality as others have said is not spectacular. It is on par with similar plastic mount EF lenses, such as kit lenses. Focusing is noisy too.
However, the plastic build also lends itself to one of its key advantages. This lens is lightweight. Combined with its small size, it's a pleasure to carry around in your bag or on your camera. Since the lens is also relatively cheap, it makes a great guinea pig lens for those situations where you wouldn't want to risk using a more expensive lens.
There is a simple AF/MF toggle switch, and thin manual focus ring for those times you need it.
The most likely comparisons to this lens will be the Mark I version of the EF 50mm F/1.8 and the EF 50mm F/1.4.
I initially scouted out Mark I versions of this lens on eBay, but found the bid prices on those to go maybe double the price of the Mark II version. Reports are that the optics are the same and that the primary differences are more solid construction with metal mount and distance scale. The distance scale can be overcome with a cheap DIY project found here http://spyderman.ekodapo.sk/?s=t&p=13. I made my own distance scale and adhered it to my lens, and it works all the same.
The EF 50mm F/1.4 is slightly nicer optically, solidly built, with a six blade aperture helping bokeh. It costs almost five times more though. If money is no object than by all means go for that.
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Jun 10, 2005
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Matt Lomeli
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Registered: May 21, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 1177
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Review Date: Jun 8, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $76.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Cheap and crisp
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Cons:
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A lot has been said on these reviews I do agree with, but some...I don't. This lens, for the price, is a hands down no-brainer to own. It took me reading all these reviews to finally get it and in no way am I disappointed. Plastic mount - blah, blah, blah...if you plan on dropping your camera or thowing it downfield 30 yards, then you may have problems (more than your camera can help you with). Once you see the results, you quickly forget about the mount. It also equals less weight. This along with my camera makes for easy portability.
That space was wasted just for you...the reader. In that time it would have taken to read that amount of words, you could have just bought this lens! Go.....NOW!
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Jun 8, 2005
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Dajon
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Registered: Jun 8, 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 6
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Review Date: Jun 8, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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low cost -sharp optics -and light as a feather!
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Cons:
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a metal mount would be nice
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I switched from nikon and while I was waiting for my Canon lenses to show up a friend let me borrow this lens for a few weeks. It was the 1st canon EF lens ive ever used and at 1st i found it too light and "plasticy" feeling -but once i got my results back -wow sharp lens! -especially closed down a few stops. i got uesd to the light and a plastic feeling and i begun to admire it for its ease of use and size. I highly recommend this lens if you are starting out -much better than the cheap standard zooms you see on camera kits! Or if you are serious this lens fits in your pocket and becomes a great little back up. I would own one but i needed a macro so i got the ef50f2.5
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Jun 8, 2005
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joezasada
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Registered: Feb 24, 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 3047
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Review Date: May 30, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $150.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Superb image quality, low cost
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Cons:
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There are indeed better lenses but you'de be hard pressed to find a better lens for the mere pocket change you spend on it
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This should be the first or second lens anyone buys for their Canon kit. You can't beat the image quality for the price.
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May 30, 2005
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SheepDog
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Registered: May 7, 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 0
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Review Date: May 18, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $100.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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PRICE. SHARPNESS (above f/5.6). Lightest lens you can ever find.
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Cons:
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Poor construction, poor color saturation, toy-like
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Cheapest prime lens out there. Whether due to curiousity or whatever, you should pick up a copy. It doesn't hurt you anything to try it out. You will be amazed by its sharpness (except for wide open). Do not hope for more though. Focusing is noisy and slow. The lens likes to hunt too. Color balance is on the low end. I play around with photoshop a lot, so color has not been a major issue. Sharpness counts for the most part of my shooting.
Grab a copy today and have fun with this little razor blade. It's sharp!
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May 18, 2005
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capitalK
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Registered: Apr 25, 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 1024
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Review Date: May 17, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Sharp, light and cheap!
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Cons:
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You get what you pay for, plastic mount and awful manual focus ring
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I can't say anything about this lens that hasn't already been said, but I'll do it anyway!
This lens is on my 300D 85% of the time. It weighs nothing, is sharp as a tack (especially at f/4 and above) and is totally usable at f/1.8, though in low-light I tend to shoot at around f/2.2. This lens has gotten me some good shots at concerts and indoor sports events while my friends who were shooting the same events got nothing usable.
If I was selling Canon SLR's I would recommend that everybody who leaves the store leaves with one of these lenses, amateur or pro (though a pro my go with the 50mm f/1.4).
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May 17, 2005
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PlaneGuy
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Registered: Sep 28, 2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 201
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Review Date: May 13, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $80.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Size, weight, image quality
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Cons:
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Autofocus speed and reliability
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The ubiquitous 50/1.8. Whilst I really like the lens, I don't think it warrants the comments that everyone should have one. Its nice and provides great image quality for the price - heck, oits great image quality for three times the price - but most people won't be able to use one of these really well - me included.
The focal length is a bit long for me on a 1.6x crop camera, and for typically "short tele" shooting the AF is too poor, and the MF is really awkward and hard.
However, I still carry this lens in my bag. It is good for those dark indoors details shots - too long for people shooting inside - and coupled with a set of extenion tubes, makes a superb intro to macro. My best few shots have been taken with that combo.
So overall I like it, but it is a more specialised lens than people consider it to be
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May 13, 2005
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wood1271
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Registered: May 12, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 0
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Review Date: May 12, 2005
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $69.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Excellent Pictures. Very Light. Great Price
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Cons:
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Plastc Mount.
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Picture quality is awesome. Way better than the kit lens that came on my camera. I hope to continue to upgrade my lenses and if they all do this well I will be very happy.
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May 12, 2005
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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344
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519278
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Apr 17, 2013
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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94% of reviewers
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$128.35
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Build Quality Rating
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Price Rating
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Overall Rating
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5.89
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9.55
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8.6
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