Canon EF 50mm f 1 8 II Camera Lens
Canon EF 50mm f 1 8 II Camera Lens
This is the lightest EF lens of all at a mere 4.6 oz. (130g). Compact and high-performance, standard lens. Its Gaussian optics provide sharp delineation from near to far focusing distances. The color balance is excellent for a standard lens.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars You get what you pay for
You get what you pay for and you don’t pay much for this lens, however, what you get for the price is surprising. If you can get past the cheap build quality you’ll be pleased to find that this lens takes excellent quality photos. Shooting wide open (at f/1.8) gives you a wonderful blurred background and it’s easy to achieve your depth of field goals with this little beauty. That said, I do find the auto focus to be a bit temperamental at times and do sometimes miss a shot having to refocus the lens. This wouldn’t have been enough to deter me from the purchase though. For just under a hundred bucks it really is worth any little quirks and it lets you try out the feel of a prime lens without having to fork out the nearly five hundred dollars for the 50mm 1.4.
Overall, very pleased and I think this lens is a steal.
2 Stars Awesome for 2 months, now blurry
I have hardly used this lens and abused it in no way. After 2 months it’s no good to me because I can’t get a sharp picture out of it. The AF is way off. If I manually focus I can come close, but no cigar. All my other lenses are awesome so I know its not the cameras fault.
5 Stars 50mm Lens Surprisingly Great in the Right Situations
I received this lens “stock” when I bought my Canon Rebel xTi (400D) off of a dude on Craigslist. He included a flare guard and a UV filter. At first I had no idea what i was doing with the thing. my initial reaction to a nonzoom lens was THIS IS STUPID WHY DO THEY MAKE SUCH THINGS. I hated that I had to move super far away from my subject matter and that I could get wider shots. As I got used to it, I found out the secret awesome to a no-zoom lens.
-INTENSE depth of field: details get nailed with correct focus
I am very into getting a super focus on my subject, and this lens allows for a huge difference between the subject and everything else. Finding the correct way to focus took a few weeks, but once I figured it out I felt like all my photographs were some sort of brilliant breakthrough. It’s invigorating to have the huge amount of detail from a lower end DSLR. My school had 5Ds for rental, and I feared I would take ages to own that type of hardware after graduating. The quality of shooting is extremely satisfying, as long as you know what you are shooting for. Until you can afford a macro lens, go with this guy.
-capturing live music events can happen
As a band photographer and concert goer, I have played with different types of cameras and (if applicable) lens. The lowlight situations were a biatch when I didn’t have a large flash and didn’t want to distract the performers. This lens rocks at freezing singers in their tracks. Once you find your perch you’re good for the rest of the night. You have to be a little closer than you think you need to be.
I would not use this lens when shooting people in close quarters. you have to get quite a distance away if you want to have anything show up around your subject. It’s a handy lens to have while sightseeing, especially for monuments. If you’re in a museum that allows photography, I would not use it because of needing to be far from the subject — you’d be pretty interrupting to the other museum-goers. The auto-focus can be pretty janky at times which can be a bummer when you want a quick snapshot. Be prepared to do all manual focusing; it creates the best shots with this lens.
This lens is good for a beginner photographer in the land of DSLR because it makes you learn how to use your camera rather than letting you get away with pretending you know what you’re doing. 
5 Stars Yipee!
I really struggled with buying this lens for a long time. How could something this inexpensive be any better than the kit quality lenses I already own. Looking at all the sample images and comments finally pushed me over the edge and I am glad they did.
This little gem has been giving me clearer pictures than I have been able to achieve for the most part since getting my XSi camera early December 2009. I am even able to do some very nice quazi macro work until I get a real macro lens, and the bokeh is really beautiful. Taking portrait shots of people, well I just can’t say enough good things about that.
This is going to keep me entertained until I can afford to buy more expensive glass, but hey, I live in California, and work for the state. Can you say ‘furlough’?
Go for it!
5 Stars Great portrait lens
This lens has a decent build quality, sufficient if you plan to hold it in your camera bag. The huge advantages over the zoom lens are:
1) The weight – it weights nothing, very light, especially for entry level DSLRs
2) The price – near one hundred bucks price tag makes it a great deal
3) The low light performance and shallow depth of field – no zoom has 1.8f aperture. You can blur the background much better than with zooms and shoot nice portraits. I compared it, for example with kit lens, which is not even mile close. It still can take pictures without flash when my $1000+ zoom can’t.
Some cons, although nothing critical:
1) The sharpness at f/1.8 is not that great for portraits, but improves significantly at f/2.
2) The lack of image stabilizer makes it difficult to shoot at slow shutter speeds without tripod.
3) The manual focus ring is too narrow, though perfectly usable
4) The lens is 50mm, which is perfect for portraits and people shooting when on full film size sensor, but on cropped sensor, like most of the DSLRs have today, it’s 1.6×50=80mm. With this focus length, it’s difficult to shoot full body portraits inside, there must be enough distance to the object. Outside it is less critical, but still noticeable. When I use the zoom lens, I often set it to about 35mm for full body portrait.
Overall it’s a good buy and great value for money. I recommend it, but not as a single lens.
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Tags: Auto Focus, Camera Lens, Canon Ef, Canon Ef 50mm, Canon Rebel, Canon Rebel Xti, Color Balance, Craigslist, Delineation, Depth Of Field, Ef Lens, Field Goals, Flare, Gaussian Optics, Initial Reaction, Little Beauty, Prime Lens, Quality Photos, Quirks, Uv Filter
Photography | admin | 
August 20, 2010 8:40 pm | 
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