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David Israel
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Registered: Nov 6, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 3744
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Review Date: Nov 27, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $76.00
| Rating: 7
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Pros:
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Price! Light weight (I'm looking at that as a pro) and sharp.
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Cons:
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Cheap build quality.
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The EF 50 1.8 II is absolutely the best value I have found in any lens that I have purchased. The money was definitely put into the optics and not the body. This lens is at least as sharp as my EF 85 1.8. Color and contrast are good. Focus is much noisier than my USM lenses but, hey, what do you expect for this price?
The lens feels cheap and even has a plastic mount, but the pictures it takes far exceed anything that I expected from a lens in this price range. I don't use this lens often, but when I do it continues to provide pleasing results (especially considering the price).
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 Nov 27, 2007
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Ron Fischer
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Registered: Jul 5, 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 0
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Nov 19, 2007
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bergie
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Registered: Aug 12, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 2
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Review Date: Nov 8, 2007
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Recommend? |
Price paid: Not Indicated
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Some of the previous posts have complained about poor AF, especially indoors. What was the ISO speed that you used?
Will the performance increase if you bump it up to 400 or higher? I would think it should. Canon is known for exhibiting much less noise than Nikon when it comes to higher ISO's, so you should still get good results. I've shot 800 ISO on my 30D and the quality still looks great.
Just curious.
-bergie
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Nov 8, 2007
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Peter twohey
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Registered: Aug 21, 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 118
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Review Date: Nov 5, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $95.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Image quality and cost.
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Cons:
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Seriously stupid optional lens hood.
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When the price of this lens is taken into consideration there cannot be a single realistic criticism except for the silly optional lens hood.Great image quality and nice for potraits-good bokeh too.I love it.
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Nov 5, 2007
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Tentacle
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Registered: Sep 14, 2006
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 2956
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Review Date: Nov 2, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $65.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Fast, small, lightweight, very cheap, great image quality. It's an excellent starter for anyone who hasn't worked with primes before.
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Cons:
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Considering the price? None. Without that consideration? flimsy focus ring and AF switch, noisy and slow AF, no focus distance indication.
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This is, hands down, the lens with the best Price/Performance ratio of the whole Canon line-up. Nicknamed the "Plastic Fantastic" and "Nifty Fifty", it delivers good performance at a bargain price. ( I paid €76 for it, which was at the time I bought it, around 60 to 65 US$. )
As such, it is a great introduction into prime lenses for anyone who hasn't worked with fixed focal length lenses before. I recommend it to anyone who has a Canon EOS dSLR, except for those who already have the faster 50 mm options, of course. It's small, lightweight, cheap, has a fast aperture and, it being a prime, will stimulate anyone who's used to zooms to think more about composition. Novices, take heed.
My copy is tack sharp at all apertures. Wide open at f/1.8 it will exhibit some blooming, which reduces the contrast of brighter areas, but this is almost gone at f/2 and completely gone at f/2.2. The blooming effect can actually be a bonus because it gives an image a bit of a dreamy look.
Another little bonus is the fact that this lens works absolutely great for near IR photography. IR low-pass filters for the 52 mm filter size are cheap and the lens has no IR hot spots. This allows for another low-threshold into a sub-section of photography.
You get what you pay for. With this, you get an awful lot for very little, but there is one substantial bad point with this lens: The AF performance is mediocre. It's noisy, it's slow, and in low light it hunts considerably. Using a Speedlite or ST-E2 with AF assist light, even if you set the flash to AF-assist beam only, is a very good idea.
Build-wise you get a lot of plastic. Because the lens is so small, that's no issue. Plastic lens mounts may be a problem with larger heavier lenses, not with this one. The focus ring is iffy and the lack of distance indication can be a problem. Also, the AF switch feels flimsy.
Considered as a whole, I give this lens a perfect 10/10. In my opinion its drawbacks in build quality and AF performance are more than overcome by its incredibly low price.
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Nov 2, 2007
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Peter Szuhai
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Registered: Oct 11, 2007
Location: Hungary
Posts: 48
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Review Date: Oct 31, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $80.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Price, speed
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Cons:
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AF hunts in low light like crazy, it really limits its usefulness in those conditions
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I have this lens for over three months now and I use it on an Xti which makes it 80mm long which is a good FL for portraits. I'm a novice started this hobby 5 months ago. I was looking for a cheap prime alternative of the kit zoom and I picked this up thinking that at that price I don't care if it is completely useless or I break it on the first day.
In the summer I used it outside with great success, most of the time stopped down to around 2.8 it is a little bit soft but the IQ is much better than the kit-lens (and that is the one you must compare it to because the kit lens costs about the same). The only problem I had with it that the AF was so slow that I had a hard time to track my two year old. I liked the sharpness and the colors over the kit lens so I was happy.
I really started to use it wide open indoors a few weeks ago and I am a little disappointed of the performance of the AF. The focus is really a hit or miss but more like miss in low light. If I put the lens in AI Focus it never stops hunting even shooting steady objects and put on a tripod. In one-shot mode it shows it is in focus yet when I look at the actual picture it is front-focusing badly about 50% of the time. This issue makes it almost useless in low-light with my skill level at least... Recently the weather got better so I took it out again and with enough light the focusing is so much more reliable. I would say around 80% of the time it hits.
I would still recommend it to every hobby photographer because it is a fun little lens capable of hitting home runs every once in a while but I would not recommend it for shooting important indoor family events because of its unreliable AF you can end up with a lot of bad pictures...
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Oct 31, 2007
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GFerRo
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Registered: Oct 25, 2007
Location: Brunei
Posts: 0
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Oct 28, 2007
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transoptic1
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Registered: Apr 1, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 930
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Review Date: Oct 27, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $80.00
| Rating: 7
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Pros:
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PRICE
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Cons:
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also price
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Anyone who rates this lens a 9 or a 10 is a novice. Period.
This lens only does well at f/4 or above. But then what's the point? I'd rather use a zoom if I'm constrained to those apertures. The point of having a fixed lens is the wide apertures. Not to mention they usually have better glass for the price. This lens, being less than $100, is an exception. The sharpness and contrast fall considerably at larger apertures.
The AF is below average in low light. It searches a lot. At least it's quiet and somewhat fast.
That being said, you'd be foolish to not spend the few bucks getting this lens. If nothing else, you will run into a situation where you just HAVE to have the 1.8 aperture for low light.
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Oct 27, 2007
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lextalionis
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Registered: Jul 28, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 1076
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Review Date: Oct 20, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $80.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Very low cost lens, fairly quick, good for indoor and low light.
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Cons:
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Poor build quality and lack of USM so AF is a bit "clunky/loud".
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I had this lens for 6 months before letting it go. I enjoyed using it and produced some decent shots. I felt the low aperture blade count resulted in harsh OOF highlights and need a better build quality 50mm. I'm seriously considering the EF-S 60mm 2.8 Macro. Good Utility-to-Value ratio.
I have sample shots under the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II Gallery Folder here: http://www.motleypixel.com/reviews/
Lex
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Oct 20, 2007
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Kurt Alden
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Registered: Oct 18, 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Oct 18, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Cheap, Sharp, Fast, Small
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Cons:
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Poor AF and build quality
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** This review is written from a novice's point of view ***
I have an EOS 350D with the kit lens and, despite being relatively happy with it, fancied extending the cameras abilities a little with a sharper and faster lens and, at the price, the EF 50 1.8 was the obvious candidate.
When it arrived I was amazed at how small and light it was, it really does feel like a toy and makes my 350D look a little odd with such a small lens. It's small size means you can literally stick it in your pocket so it adds to your "carry around" armory.
Initial results were disappointing - used wide open pictures taken of my young son indoors were far from sharp. However, this is down to me being a complete novice and not realising that taking close-ups using a 50mm lens at f/1.8 gives you such a small DOF that barely any of the subject could be in focus anyway.
Once I got the hang of this DOF malarky, my images suddenly became MUCH sharper and and became very happy with my purchase. Soon I took it for its first real test - I was photographing fishing boats in a harbour in very low light - I found that I was getting really good shutter speeds despite it being so dark - it really is a revelation when you use a fast lens for the first time.
There though I also discovered it's achilles heel - the autofocus performance in low light. It was really pretty disappointing, the poor little thing was hunting like mad and absolutely failing to focus a lot of the time, despite sounding like it was about to fall apart with the very noisy AF mechanism. I had to spend an inordinate amount of time finding constrasty areas of my scene to point it at to give it a chance to focus. Even when it finally achieved focus, around half of the shots were far from sharp, something I didn't discover until getting home. I even resorted to trying manual focus, something I rarely get good results with. It was tooth-gnashingly frustrating to have a beautiful scene in front of you yet not be able to photograph it because your AF is not up to it.
However, despite these issues I was still able to get plenty of decent photos as I took a fair few which made up for everything - it was very satisfying taking photos that good from a lens that cheap in very low light conditions.
To sum up as a novice user, used correctly you'll get great results - by that I mean learn about depth of field, learn to focus manually or how to "help" the autofocus in poor conditions and use it in it's sweet spot (f/5.6 or so). You'll be able to take pictures you'd never achieve with the kit lens and f/1.8 gives you excellent low-light performance and a tiny DOF if you fancy getting creative.
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Oct 18, 2007
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juberisk2
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Registered: Sep 16, 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 380
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Review Date: Sep 29, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $70.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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inexpensive, sharp, 1.8
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Cons:
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none at this price point
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this really is the best bang for buck in all of photography. and it's so cheap that you need not put a UV filter on it to protect it...if you scratch or break it, just buy a new one.
I concur that it is very good at f/1.8 and sharp at f/2.8. if you're on a tight budget, this is the best lens you can buy for portraits, shallow depth of field, or lowlight photography. period.
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Sep 29, 2007
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Don Farra
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Registered: Sep 4, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Sep 28, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $108.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Sharp low light lens, with fast and accurate focusing. Low cost makes it a great value. Low distrotion and flare resistant. Does not draw attention, which allows for great candids. Doesn't say steal-me in seven diferent languages.
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Cons:
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Somewhat noisy focusing when the lens hits the rails, min-max distances, you will hear a clunk noise. Plastic contruction to the extreme, outside of the electrical contacts I don't think there is any metal in the lens.
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This is a lightwieght, small, low cost lens that in the right hands can produce some outstanding images. Great for candid portraits, travel, interior images and camping. Put it on a good tripod, lock up the mirror and use a cable release and sit back and be surprised on just how well this lens can capture all the details. Do not underestimate the creative enabling power of a 50mm lens 1.8 lens. Hand holding will allow the phototgrapher to capture available light images with a shallow depth of field to isolate your subject, something other EF-IS lenses cannot reproduce.
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Sep 28, 2007
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Dawei Ye
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Registered: Sep 14, 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 3562
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Review Date: Sep 23, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $100.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Sharp Images; (Relatively) Cheap in Price
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Cons:
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Breaks very easily, and even when not broken it feels like it will imminently break;
Not Cheap enough to be "Disposable"
Not wide enough on a 1.6X Crop
Autofocusing in the dark
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I'm an absolute newbie but here are my views:
Paid $125 AUD (around $100 US) which is exceptionally cheap compared to my Tamron 17-50mm which was $560 AUD (though still cheap) and $970 for my EOS 400D (Rebel XTi)
Wow! When I first purchased it I thought this is a piece of crap, my Powershot A640 gave sharper images, but now that I have learnt how to take photos properly with my 400D, it is very sharp. the A640 also gave sharp images, but they had that 'grainy' noise stuff you get from sharpening in Photoshop, so I assume it is due to more aggressive in camera sharpening. The 50mm f/1.8 on a 400D gives both SHARP and CLEAN results with barely any of that oversharpened noise/squiggly thingys. In practice, it is also much easier to get sharp and "SLR like" results from this lens than my Tamron 17-50mm, especially at night, though this could be because of my (lack of) skills.
Not very good at focusing, I don't mind noise, but in dark locations it tends to "hunt" (?) a lot and feels like it will break apart with all those shudders. Also the AF Assist Flashes of the EOS 400D pisses off people as this happens, but that's another issue 
Not a fault of the lens per se, but often I use it instead of the Tamron at parties at night because it performs better, but unfortunately you have to back up quite a lot and people think you are a weird or something (e.g. "WTF is that guy doing??"), so it is a bit too ?"long"? on a APS-C 1.6X crop camera
At time of writing, I have just dropped mine from about 1m high whilst it was in it's box and bubble wrap and plastic and it still broke!!! with two of the hook things on the top part snapping off. I have superglued them and will see how it goes This has left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth because I feel I was just getting used to this lens and being able to use it properly. So a big gripe is that it isn't cheap enough to warrant such poor durability.
I admit when I first got my dSLR and this lens, I thought that comments about it feeling like a toy were a bit harsh, but after getting another lens (Tamron 17-50mm), and after it breaking on me, I understand and agree with the comments.
Whether my broken one will work in the morning, or whether I get a replacement, I am going to sticky tape padding all over it!!!
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Sep 23, 2007
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Morgan Lupton
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Registered: Sep 22, 2007
Location: N/A
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Sep 22, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $90.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Incredibly short and easy to fit in carrying cases.
Well priced for a student budget.
Excellent bokeh for the price.
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Cons:
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The switch for manual focus takes a good push; makes me wonder if it will be the first problem if I have any with the lens.
The lens cap comes off to easy, but not a major problem since the glass is recessed well into the lens.
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This is my first lens that I actually bought and didn't recieve as a gift. It's a quite good one. There are a few nuisances with this lens, but I don't consider them to big.
I ordered this through Wolf Camera because they didn't have it stocked, and so I couldn't try it out first on my camera. After a couple weeks of using it, I have started to get un-"used" to wide angles.
The camera is quite picky about focusing. 95% of the time it is spot on. But for the few other times, it needs a certain of amount of difference in colors. Hard pictures to focus include clouds and dark objects.
This is an incredible lens. I probably will use it in all cases were I have control over the picture and don't have to worry about zooming. It'll fit anywhere and the focusing can be perfected with some days of use. I'd suggest buying.
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Sep 22, 2007
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borderlight
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Registered: Dec 6, 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1645
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Review Date: Sep 11, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $70.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Light, sharp, decent contrast
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Cons:
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Build, lack of scale, MF difficult
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You will be surprised with this gem if you can put up with the lack of a DOF scale and difficult MF. The one I have is quite sharp at f1.8. On a FF it is best between f2.8-f5.6. According to The Digital Picture.com, a site where you can actually compare your lens against others, the 50 f1.8 is sharper than the 50 f1.2L, and it just about beats any zoom, L or not, at 50mm stopped down to @f2.8. The 50 f1.4 beats the f1.8 version in bokeh, flare control, and slightly better contrast, but then it's 1/4 the price.
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Sep 11, 2007
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fromthecoast
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Registered: Sep 5, 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Sep 5, 2007
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $84.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Great ability to take indoor shots in low light
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Cons:
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None, for the price what is there to complain about?
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I received this lens in the mail one day after my xti and it has replaced my kit lens ever since. I should have purchased a body only. This thing is great for indoor photography. I have a newborn and I cannot believe the shots that I am getting. Great in low light, great background blur, very sharp. I have used at 1.8 all day long with no problems and 2.8 is rock solid as already stated. The only con to this lens is that it will make you wonder where you can find the next hidden canon gem for less than $100. If you know where, please let me know. As stated earlier, if you don't have this lens you are really hurting yourself.
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Sep 5, 2007
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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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517980
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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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