The [AP] Blog

I hope you’re doing well, and I thought I’d get a nice lens review in here, as it’s been quite desolate for a while. The lens that will be under the microscope will be the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, which is a budget lens, although it with-holds a very nice surprise. So here goes…

Initial Impressions

Firstly, a new user to this lens will probably notice the amazingly compact size and weight of this lens, it’s amazing really. I’m using it on my Canon 400D, and compared to the Kit lens, this thing is tiny! I’d say that this is a good factor for this lens, it’s size and weight really complements the compact body of the 400D, and contrary to many peoples beliefs, the main lens body is surprisingly sturdy, at least at a parallel with the Kit lens. (18-55). There are quite a few reasons I bought this lens:

As well as those benefits, many people on Flickr were also recommending it to me. And, I think I should say, I really don’t regret it at all, it is an amazing piece of kit.

Image Quality

I guess that this it the main point of a lens, not the build quality etc, but, what’s important in the end with photography, is the photo that comes out, and this lens is probably the best value for money lens on the market. Many people say that the lens has ‘L’ quality glass, (if you don’t know what that means, it is that the Canon L series lenses, (the luxury ones), have great quality, and that this is on par with it). I feel that this is most certainly true, the lens gives amazing image quality, here is a shot I have taken with it:

This shot can tell us a lot about the lens, (please ignore the subject for the moment!), firstly, we can see the clarity, the nun is fully sharp, very crisp and clear. (Btw: the nun is about 8cm tall), and also, we can see the DOF, this photo was taken at f/1.8, the widest aperture, and you can clearly see the completely thrown out background, and also, the gradually ‘blurring’ table detail.

The DOF is very shallow with this lens, meaning that it is particularly great for portraits, and also for outdoors photography, of plants etc, because you can isolate the subject from the background.

The lens tends to perform best when it has been stopped down a bit, say, to f/5+, at which point it provides awesome detail, in particular, the sharpness peaks at around f/5 on my copy. In a summary, I guess I could say that the lens is most certainly great, and it is instantly noticeable when compared with the Kit lens, which I feel a LOT of people will be upgrading from. A last point I should make is that a lot of people will pass over this lens because they feel that since the Kit lens already covers the 50mm range, you shouldn’t buy it, however, that is no excuse for ignoring this lens, because the low light potential pays for itself, seriously.

Build Quality

In my opinion, a far less important aspect of a lens, particularly in a first upgrade from the kit lens, when in the future you are much more likely to upgrade again, say to the f/1.4 variant. Here are some shots of the lens I just whipped up, to show the general aspects of it.

As you can clearly see, it is a fairly standard looking lens, but one thing, that although vain, I feel is quite useful about the lens, is the fact that it looks different to the kit lens. I feel that this is important, because, the amount of people that use the 400D as their family camera, and never take off the kit lens, (which is fine by the way, I prefer that to using some compact), and if you differentiate yourself from them, you can appear much more interesting.

Anyway, moving onto more real things… The build quality isn’t amazing, but once again I must reiterate that, for what you’re paying, it really is fine, the lens is fully plastic, (except for the glass), even the lens mount is plastic, (as is the kit lens), this allows for the extremely light weight which is really nice. There are some slightly tacky factors to the lens that I will comment on:

• When attempting to focus below min. focus level, the lens ring literally ‘jumps’ up and down, and on top of that, the focusing noise is very excessive, you can get some very moaning sounds out of this lens.
• The AF switch is quite uncomfortable, it is small and awkward and can sometimes get stuck when the clutch moves on and off of the motor.
• The lens element extends considerably during focusing, which coincidentally zooms the image a surprising amount. I personally am a fan of focusing within the lens, not outside… But, that’s not really a problem.

Realistically, these problems aren’t critical, and most certainly shouldn’t change your views on the lens, as it is an amazingly good value for money solution, and more importantly, an experiment into the real world of lenses, outside of the kit. Furthermore, the image quality is so high, that there need not be worries about the build quality.

Conclusion

Positives

• Amazing image quality
• Amazingly cheap
• Very wide open allowing for good low light performance
• Moves you on from the kit

Negatives

• Build quality is average
• Focusing noisy

These are pretty much the facts about this lens, and I think there are very VERY few people that actually wouldn’t recommend this lens to you. Of course, if you have the money, you may as well go for the 50mm f/1.4, however, there are a LOT of people who don’t want to spend that money without experimenting with Primes first of all, and this is most certainly the way to do this.

Recommended Sellers

eBay UK : Seller, ‘Russian Blue‘ = £52

theapblog.com gives this lens: 96%
Reviewed by Charlie Styr, on 30/1/07 for ‘theapblog.com’

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Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the review, please let me know what you think, and I recommend the lens wholeheartedly.

Charlie - Teenage Photographer