Very Sharp stopped down beyond f/2.5

Soft from f/1.4- 2.2 with CA present

Very Sharp stopped down beyond f/2.5
Soft from f/1.4- 2.2 with CA present

Scott Cook Photography. Link to sample photos.

Tact Sharp
Extremely useful for low light without flash
Good Value

AF hunting in low light.

This is a sharp lens for indoor photography.
The built quality is above the 18-55mm kit lens but is good enough for casual use. I am quite happy with the result.

AF seems to have trouble hunting for focus in low light and white objects.

Excellent photos from this lens, very happy about 95% of the time. Autofocus is great except in the lowest lighting.

Micro USM autofocus failure. Poor low-light focusing. Gathers dust internally. Soft diffused look at 1.4 (you might like it).

About the focus issue:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00HYvS&tag=

Overall this lens has proven very satisfactory to me. However I had a complete failure of the focusing system within 7 months. The focus accuracy became progressively worse in the week prior to the motor becoming very erratic then completely unresponsive.

In 7 months I have noticed a little dust inside the lens. Not well sealed at all if this is the case. I'm feeling Canon charges more for this lens than it is worth build-wise. Image-wise it's a bargain.

I'm really iffy about recommending this now. Unfortunately I've discovered a lot of others online describing the same problem. I love the lens, but I have doubts about the manufacturing quality.

Small
Light weight
Sharp
Beautiful background blur

Play in focus ring
Focus ring is not as smooth as the Canon 85mm f/1.8

I bought this lens together with Canon 85mm f/1.8, as I was so impressed in the low light shooting capabilities of the Sigma 30mm f1.4 that I had purchased some months earlier. The 50mm f/1.4 is of lower quality both mechanically and optically than the 85mm f/1.8. The 50mm produces more flare, has less contrast and the auto focus is not as reliable. This is not to say that the auto focus is bad, it’s just not as good as the 85mm lens. It seems as the focal length decreases so does the auto focus accuracy on the 350D when using fast lenses. There is a some purple fringing that is apparent under strong light. The focus ring does not operate as smoothly and also has some play, unlike the 85mm lens. My main objective was to use this lens when filming at folk music events. Most of these events are poorly lit. All lenses mentioned have proved to work very well here. The 30mm and the 50mm lenses are just about impossible to manual focus in low light unlike the 85mm. If you are considering between the 50mm or 85mm lens, then the 85mm lens is of much better value, considering that there is only about $50 between then.

Customer Service

not required as yet

Similar Products Used:

Sigma 30mm f/1.4
Canon 85 f/1.8

Contrast, color rendition, sharpness and versatility.

none.

I don't know why some of the reviews on the site show users complaining of the build quality of this lens. It's fairly heavy for its size, has USM focusing and DELIVERS. I shoot in film so the lens is exactly 50mm on my EOS-3 body. I shoot mostly portraits of models, but have used this lens for flat-perspective, with landscape shots as well. Extremely sharp and VERY contrasty, this lens is better(in my opinion), then the highly-regarded EF 85mm f/1.8 USM. I usually use an 81b filter from B+H for portrait work and if I use this lens for landscape work, I use a 58mm Heliopan Polarizer. There is no distortion in the corners of any of the images I've taken, razor sharpness when looking at details of portrait work-especially in very low lighting indoors- with only available light(no flash). It's a very versatile lens which has everything going for it.

Customer Service

please!

Similar Products Used:

EF Canon 135mm f/2 L USM
EF Canon 70-200 f/4 L USM
EF Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM
AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 D

f1.4-great for lowlight.
sharp, sharp, sharp.
sweet bokeh.
quiet USM motor.

expensive for a lens of this questionable build. My f1.8 mark I is better built than this lens. External focusing is disappointing-you'd think at this price level that Canon would make this an internally focusing lens. Very questionable build quality-it's broken twice on me now-fixed myself both times while my more often used f1.8 has never failed me.. Focus is slower than expected for an USM motor, especially at this price level. My 1D mkII tends to overexpose at f1.4 compared to my f1.8 lens. Not a terribly versatile lens either-close focusing distance leaves much to be desired.

Ultrasonic motor, quiet, fairly quick focusing. Large for a 50mm lens. Build quality a little suspect for a prime in this price range. Extremely sharp. Nice bokeh at f1.4
Very disappointed given the price of this lens, even used, not a good value.
I use my 50mm f2.5 compact macro much more than this lens, and my f1.8 is my default 50mm for candid shooting.
Very poor value at 315 brand new (bh price), almost as poor a value used at 210 (what I bought it for at bh photo)

Customer Service

not applicable

Similar Products Used:

EF 50mm f1.8 (original, the one with a metal body)
EF 50mm f2.5 compact macro (worth every penny).

Beautiful pictures. Nice blurry backgrounds with large apertures. Tack-sharp pictures with medium to small apertures.

Two lenses - one used and one only a year old - developed nearly identical autofocus problems.

I originally bought this lens used on Ebay. When I received it, the lens acted as though it had been dropped in sand. The manual focusing ring was "crunchy" and the autofocus hunted around a lot (when it worked at all). I returned it to the seller and got my money back. No problem, I'll just get a new one from B&H. So I did. I have used mine well over a year. Most of my shooting is done at f5.6 and smaller, so there are no sharpness issues. I bought the f1.4 so I could see easily in dim light. This is a wonderful lens. It gets used a lot, but I don't abuse it in any way. But after about a year, guess what? The lens started hunting for the correct focus. After awhile the autofocus stopped altogether. I switched the lens to a different EOS body and got the same result. It was acting almost identically to the used one I had bought earlier. Is this a common problem with this lens? I have five other fixed focal length EOS lenses and none of them have given me this problem. Canon fixed it promptly for a reasonable fee ($90). Their repair slip was unitelligible, so I don't know exactly what the problem was. Do I think this is a good lens? Yes, but maybe you should be prepared to have it fixed if you use it a lot.

Customer Service

Quick and reasonably priced.

Similar Products Used:

EOS 50mm macro EOS 20mm f2.4 EOS 35mm f2.0 EOS 85mm f1.8 EOS 200mm f2.8

Sharp and fast almost 2 fast at times you can fire off multipule shots before you realize it. "My wife asked if she took the picture?" I replied yes, you took 5. Good build quality

Price and hard to learn

Great Lens Sharp and fast. Debated between this and the 1.8 version. I was excedingly frustrasted with this lens at first. It was the hardest lens to get comforatable with and to learn. After I started "getting it", it is a great lens and super sharp. Issues with focusing which I have read where a chore to over come. After reading everthing I could on the lens in all forums I made the adjustments and bam, what a shot. As said before f/2-2.8 will give you an image to die for and for groups around f/4 will retain all clairity over the shot. I thought I would be stuck in the none zoom blues but as one fellow put it at this focal lenght I can zoom with my feet. If you get this lens plan on working with it and you will not be disapointed with the results.

Similar Products Used:

28-135IS 70-300 quantray

Colour saturation, tonal range, lack of colour cast, good perspective, speed, smoothness.

None in this price range.

Hi. I will not restate what others have already ventured. 1. If you say that this “lens is soft wide-open”, then you don’t understand how lenses are designed, nor, do understand how they are supposed to be used. F1.4 is only there for night/dusk shooting and to isolate the background in an extreme sense in a creative context. If you want ultimate sharpness in normal daylight – then use this lens in the aperture range in that which it was actually designed for sharpness – f2-2.8+ Being an f1.4 lens gives you a wide exit aperture (at the rear of the lens), this achieves several things, but mainly extra sharpness, perfect perspective an ZERO vignetting. 2. There is no corresponding L 50mm in the Cannon range (WHY NOT!? Canon). Therefore, this lens is not de-engineered quite so far as it would normally suffer in order for Canon to avoid damaging “competing” lenses higher up the range. Colour balance is achieved optically with complimentary types of glass, rather than is normal in the price range, by heavy multicoating. That’s why this lens produces a broad colour-space with no attenuation and “mucky” colour cast. 3. For many users, producing a lens sharper than this, with a higher MTF score than 4.4, is pointless as it surpasses any photographic media you put behind it. However, if you have a Canon 1DS MK II or something equally exotic (almost 3 times the resolution than traditional slide film), then you may be able to see a difference between this, and an MTF of 4.6-4.8. In which case, you should consider the 85mm f1.2. Again, with the 85 f1.2, it’s no co-incidence that ultra-sharpness goes hand in hand with a wide exit aperture. This lens is L-class performance, with “standard” class build – if you know what you are talking about, and know how to use it, this lens is awesome and a real design classic. Canon, where is the Flourite f1.2 50mm????? ;)

Similar Products Used:

17-4- f4.0L, 35mm f1.4L, 50mm f1.8 MK II, 24-70mm f2.8L, 500mm f4.0L IS.

Fast Nice colour range Razorblade sharpness

Perfection lies in the eye of the beholder.

This lens was every little bit I expected and more. It took me some shots before I really got the grip of it but since then I get exactly what I want. I have just downloaded my latest pictures. Night shots mainly. My camera performed nicely as always but I was surprised by the range of colours! Such smoothness! I took most of them between F3.2 and F5.6 and a few at F1.4 (flash or high ISO) I could cry out of joy.

Similar Products Used:

Canon EF 100 Macro F2.8 USM Sigma 18-50 F2.8 EX DC