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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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