what is the deal with this lens? everyone speaks so highly about it. is there an IS version, or is that unneccessary for this sort of lens? what would this lens be good for? only portraits? sight seeing (but close ups I guess).
Try "all of the above". Mine is left over from film days. I had a pair of EOS 650s (first EOS model put on the market) in the 1980s and picked this lens up for occasional existing light work (in those days a lot of us covered a wedding with the basic normal focal length lens), so mine is an earlier model with more metal in the barrel.
I used it for portraits, candid work, and some close up. It's a very sharp lens.
as you can see, ya really have to keep an eye on your focus point.
also I had to use M focus on these photos of the lens and equipment. inside. not sure why but it wasn't doing so well inside with AF.
outside I was shooting with AF and it was solid.
Re: Focus point. Part of that will have to do with the wider aperture. Manual focus to me is far faster, surer, and even sometimes more accurate, this lens is an older design and the focus motor is not as quick as later designs. It will perform better outdoors in brighter light.
Now, on to the best benefit of all with this lens and the T1i. One of the reasons I bought the T1i was in hopes of being able to use the video mode with this lens and somehow be able to sidestep the full auto only of video mode. I had planned on using ND filters to "force" the cam to select F1.8 for shallow depth of field, but found out the camera simply ups the ISO. So I purchased an adapter ring and a Nikkor 50mm F1.8 AI-S which is a manual only lens. Select F1.8 and the camera cannot change that so it adjusts shutter and ISO to get proper exposure.
Test results were great, the selective focus looked super, the slight amount of "flare" due to aberrations we see on fast lenses wide open was not objectionable. And then...
...This method in the linked video using the Canon 50mm F1.8 EF lens, every bit as nice as the Nikkor but with no "flare" and no abberrations I could detect. I could have saved myself the price of the Nikkor lens (which I'll still keep and use)
So here it is. Video opens up showing the selective focus on the model, then shows how you set up the camera to "lock" F1.8, and then 2 scenes showing F5.6 (selected by the camera in auto mode) and then F1.8 set by the method shown in the video.
http://www.vimeo.com/6266026
Cheers.
