Canon 50mm F1.8 - Good buy.

Canon 50mm F1.8

Sat down a few days ago with a friend to chat on our L lens and what it could do. Then cropped up a topic on prime lenses. He said a friend introduced him to the Canon 50mm F1.8 - cheap and best! Converted it is only USD80.

Has a plastic body but glass lens. Using it would make you a believer.

Tested it against my 28-105 zoom and 80-200 IS f2.8. Of course the L lens was top but against other zoom lens set at 50mm on a 5D with full frame, distortion was at minimal with a good tonal range (though a bit contrasting)

Have used it last week on a group photo session in an institution outdoors. It was really good. Prime lens stuff. Minimal distortion and sharpness was great.

Being light and inconspicuous, I am now carrying it around together with my L lens in case a 50mm is required.

For this price it is worth its weight in gold.

I think everyone here will agree that the 50mm f/1.8 is an excellent investment. For the price people pay for glass (and tripod mounts, filters, and bags), I think NOT picking one up is a crime... (that is unless you have the funds to get something like a f/1.2)

The 50 1.8 can certainly produce sharp and good images. And it is cheap. The issues I have with it are: it breaks very easily if you knock it against something (I'm on my second one), it is noisy and slow to autofocus, and it is fiddly to manual focus.

Among the non-L lenses, I absolutely LOVE the 85 f/1.8. This is sharp, quick to autofocus, easy to manual focus and robust. It is a little too long as a focal length on the 10D for general use but still good for portraits. On the 1DII it is great for head and shoulders portraits and low-light concert/theatre/sports​. I imagine that it would be a great candids/portrait sports lens on the 5D. So I recommend you try it out (a used version) next time you have some cash.

Andrew

I whole heartily agree.

It is the best introductory lens for those who wants to experience the fast prime lens.
And it does a great job and does it at the cost of mere 75 bucks or less.

Andrew B. wrote in post #3421569
Among the non-L lenses, I absolutely LOVE the 85 f/1.8. This is sharp, quick to autofocus, easy to manual focus and robust. It is a little too long as a focal length on the 10D for general use but still good for portraits. On the 1DII it is great for head and shoulders portraits and low-light concert/theatre/sports​. I imagine that it would be a great candids/portrait sports lens on the 5D. So I recommend you try it out (a used version) next time you have some cash.

I agree

Try the 50/1.4. I haven't had mine long, but it is far better than the 50/1.8 I had. The thrifty fifty was just too slow to focus and had to be stopped down to f/2.8 to be sharp. Since I already have f/2.8 glass from 17 to 200mm, I just never liked the cheapie. I do really enjoy the 50/1.4, which at 1.4 is sharp but has a slight halation effect that is akin to a soft focus effect - which makes for really nice portraits. Stopping down to f/1.8 makes it even sharper with good contrast and the halation is gone. It is also much faster focusing than I remember the thrifty being.