Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens

• 50mm standard lens with f/1.8 maximum aperture
• Traditional Gauss-type optical design is extremely sharp
• Focuses as close as 18 inches for extreme close-ups,Autofocus: Yes
• Ideal for natural-looking shots; excellent color balance
• Measures 2.7 inches in diameter; 1-year warranty

Once upon a time the 50 mm lens was THE standard camera lens and was THE optical benchmark by which manufacturers were judged and compared. Although the basic lens focus has now shifted (at least at the low to mid amateur level) to zooms you can still benefit from years of research and development that went into designing the 50 mm lens and this here lens may be the best lens, dollar for dollar, that you can ever buy. The question is can you afford not to own this lens?

Years of development have brought us a lens that has a fast aperture of 1.8 far faster than any consumer zoom lens and that is sharp as a filed tack. Be forewarned about the sharpness . . . if you are taking pictures of people, this lens is unyielding in its sharpness and may well surprise you and your subjects whose every blemish is captured. The lens has a fabulously shallow depth of field if you want to use the 1.8 aperture to blow out a background. This lens is also ridiculously inexpensive. It is not USM so it is a little loud. It does not have a moving focus scale. For the money though this is heaven.

As to the build quality yes, it is plastic. No, it's not built like the Rock of Gibraltar. If you are going to give this lens extensive use as your everyday lens and you shoot a lot, it may not hold up all that well as one reviewer suggests. However, I've now had this lens and used it fairly regularly (although not as the primary lens) for about 8 years and it is still in great condition. In my mind, spend the $$ on this first before you go and drop $330 on the 50mm 1.4 USM lens and I think you'll find it gets the job done nicely and that the extra $250 on the 1.4 may not be worth the difference in build (major difference), speed (minor difference) and image quality (minor difference).

Buy Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens Now

Wow! My theory now is that Canon doesn't put this baby as their kit lens because many people would decide that they DONT NEED ANOTHER ONE! And many of them would be right!

Like others, I bought the Rebel XT and the 28-135 IS lens. The 28-135 is heavy and priced like a gold brick. I guess it does OK, and I do keep it mounted most of the time.

And like others, I stumbled on this lens somehow, read the raving reviews, and for the price figured, "What the heck?"

This lens in tack sharp. It shows the fire in the colors you photograph. The wide aperture means candles can be excellent lights for portraits. Its narrow field is great.

There are pitfalls though. I snapped a pic of my face at arm's length using autofocus a while back and (1) the focus locked on the tip of my nose and my face was already blurring (2) the lens was so sharp that I saw blackheads clearly on my nose tip I can't really see in the mirror (doh!). I've read that dSLR images are slightly soft to aid in later editing. I can only imagine what it would do on a film camera.

Yesterday while camping I slapped this lens on. Unlike the 28-135, this one is light enough that I didnt notice I was carrying a camera everywhere. At night I put the lens on the top of the car pointed at the sky, set the shutter for 15 secs, and hit the button. Much to my amazement, the lens not only showed hundreds of stars that were invisible to my eyes, but it also found a galaxy. That pic is on the customer image section of this page. You can see what I saw, but the smaller size doesnt do the lens justice.

One quirk of Amazon is that this page keeps alternating pictures of lenses. This lens does not have the distance focus scales on the outside of it.

Zoom is nice for many things. But where zoom isnt necessary, performance is very, very nice. Performance at $70 is almost too good to be true.

Let me close by repeating what has been said elsewhere and will continue to be said here....IF YOU OWN A SLR, STOP NOW AND GET THIS LENS!

UPDATE 12/06 I have owned this lens for about a year now. Over that time I have immersed myself in photography, workshops, books, tests, etc. I have since upgraded to the 30D and a couple of L lenses, and now have a portfolio strong enough that I am now getting dollar signs thrown at me that I didnt even see coming. I say all this to give you some perspective on what I will write afterward.

Now that Ive really learned the difference, I can agree with others that it is a tad soft wide open, but that is to be expected. I read a lens test recently that put the 1.8 against Canons heavweight L glass, and, not surprisingly, the L beat out the $70 plastic wonder in most categories. What might surprise you, however, is that when the lens was tested at F 8 it BEAT THE L GLASS in sharpness! As one that has felt the pain of trading large sums of money for L glass, I appreciate affordable quality...not something anyone can plan on seeing much of in photography.

My 28-135 has since joined my kit lens in the garage. The 1.8 is still in my case with my newer 30D.

With some experience under my belt I now would make the following recommendation. Right now, as you read this, you may have an idea if you've been bitten by the photog bug. You may know that this beast is going to morph into something more than a simple pasttime. If you look inside the depths of your aspirations and you know that you are going to be a serious amateur, bite the bullet and get the 50mm 1.4. Trust me on this one. Eventually you'll end up getting it anyway, so just apply the $70 to the 1.4 now.

If you're just exploring different areas of SLR photography, you cant go wrong with this lens. Case in pointas of this writing the baby in pink in the customer images section of this lens is one of the top-ten rated images of all pics uploaded on Amazon! This lens will allow you to dazzle friends and relatives used to snapshots from point & shoots. It will be the start of what you upgraded to a DSLR for in the first place. For you, the 1.8 is still, by far, the best value in photography!

Read Best Reviews of Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens Here

I've had the 50mm f1.8 for about three months now, so I wanted to put in my two cents worth after a little field use. What originally attracted me to this lens was, obviously, the price. It is very, very inexpensive. This is likely due to the fact that the housing is, unlike its predecessor the Mark I, entirely plastic. That initially put me off, but after seeing some images posted that had been taken with this lens (and after seeing the prices of the f1.4 and the used mark I)I decided that I really had nothing to lose. There are, as with most lenses good and bad elements to this lens. Lets start with the bad.

Keep in mind that if you are shooting a canon DSLR (as I am) this 50mm lens actually behaves as an 80mm lens, so it isn't that terribly wide. The fact that it is functionally 80mm can make framing shots a bit difficult. This is definitely a secondary lens and really isn't that appropriate for a "walking around lens." At least it isn't for me, as I tend to prefer shooting wider angles.

If you have some sort of mishap with your camera, like dropping it, you can likely kiss this lens goodbye. I have fortunately never had to test this, but I imagine that it wouldn't stand up to any sort of impact very well. The flimsiness of the build is very obvious when compared to some of the older canon lenses. MY 35-135mm USM is about 10 years old, and has a metal chassis. These lenses can often stand drops and still operate. This is not so for the 50mm mark II.

Since everything but the glass is bare bones, the autofocus isn't terribly fast. If all you have ever worked with is USM lenses, you will have to be ready to take a little more time focusing. If you have experience with the 18-55mm kit lens, you will find that it is about the same.

All that being said, you are probably wondering why I rated this lens at four stars instead of, say, three. That's because there are a lot of nice features to this lens that far outweigh the bad.

If you have never used a prime lens before (meaning, a "fixed" lens that doesn't zoom) then you are in for a pleasant surprise. It is far more expensive to build a quality zoom than a quality prime, thus decent zooms tend to cost a mint. Also, zooms are only at their best in the middle of their range. The 50mm doesn't move, and so has been optimally designed for its focal length. Shots are sharp at all aperture ranges; shots at medium apertures (f8-f11) will blow your mind. Really. Search the web for some images made with this lens in those ranges and you will buy it. Resistance is futile. Canon may have skimped on the body, but they didn't cut corners on the glass. It is excellent.

The wide aperture (f1.8) is really outstanding as well. I had never really worked with a lens this fast before because, frankly, I hadn't been able to afford to. You dispense with your flash and handhold at levels that you would not have thought possible. And once you get away from flash use during night/lowlight photography, you will see some truly amazing colors that flash typically obliterates.

The fact that it is fixed, and not too wide, forced me to be a little more creative than I normally would when framing shots. When I went to Burma this year, I left my principal lens at my hotel, and didn't realize it until I was far away, so I was forced to use the 50mm as my principal lens. Some of my favorite shots of my whole trip actually come from that day, as I was forced to come to terms with the focal length limitations of the lens.

And finally, there is the price. A lens with glass this good that costs less than a filter setup, or a dozen 8x10 prints? How can you say no? Unless you have the bucks to spend on the f1.4 or the Mark I, this lens belongs in every EOS shooters bag.

Want Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens Discount?

For less than $100, you get a great lens.

Other reviewers, on Amazon and many other sites, have complained about the poor build quality... I can't deny that it's made cheaply compared to it's $300 cousin. But most of the people complaining have an unending list of L-glass lenses in their bag.

If you're an amatuer, this lens is more than good. The more expensive version gives you 1/3 stop... a $200 1/3 stop. I've had mine about a year. At f/1.8 I've handheld shots in streetlight and in dim torch-lit restaurants. I cannot imagine a better lens for the money.

And worst case, if the lens breaks, I can buy two more before I've come to the total that I would have put into the f/1.4 cousin.

I highly recommend this lens.

UPDATE 02/2010: After almost 5 years with this lens, it finally bit the big one... literally. First, my wife dropped it onto a wooden deck from chest-high. Other than a scuff on the plastic, no issues with the function of the lens. 2 weeks later, my dad dropped the lens out of my unzipped camera bag (DOH!). The drop didn't kill the lens, the night outside being used as a chew toy for 2 giant schnauzers did. Bottom line, I stand by my original fervor for this lens. I might personally upgrade to the f/1.4 because I do like to work in very low-light and I occaisionally wish I had just a little more lens speed. But I am certainly teetering because I know how good this lens is. Happy shooting!

UPDATE 12/2011: After a long hiatus, Santa Claus hooked me up with my second copy of this lens. It is just as good as the original.It is still taking wonderful nature shots and is the lens that most often makes people smile when they see the photographs it takes.

Optically, you can't really do that much better than the f/1.8 strong contrast, good color rendition, and very sharp even when shooting wide open. I bought this lens and it lived on my camera for several months and was the default piece of glass that I reached for when the quality of the shot "really mattered."

But, honestly, it's built about as solid as a toy prize in a box of Cracker Jack. After a few months of use use, not abuse the lens literally came apart, the front barrel separated from the mount. The bad news was that the lens was completely shot it was in pieces, after all the good news was that it had been cheap, so my pocketbook was able to stand the cost of replacement.

I replaced the lens with it's older brother, a used version of the Mark I much more solid, and which gives equal optical quality even used. It's a shame that the body and housing on new version of this lens is so shamefully cheap, because the glass is very nice. But I can't recommend it, unless you either a) don't do that much shooting, or b) don't mind replacing the lens on a fairly regular basis.

My suggestion is to either cough up the money for Canon's 50mm f/1.4 gains you a half a stop and is built to pro-quality standards or pick up the older version of the f/1.8 on the used market. Either option will likely end up being cheaper in the long run.