Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II – Bang for the buck? or waste of money?

Well guys, as you can see it’s time to talk Lenses… I’m a Canon fan by heart, and by opportunity, meaning that I’ve started using Canon gear a long time ago, and since Nikon is more expensive down here, I kept using Canon and never switched fully to any other brand, I’ve used Sony for a long time, and I’ve tried Nikon a few times, but always returned to the trusty Canon.

Now, when it comes to digital photography, no matter what camera you’re using, how many megapixels you have, or how many FPS you can shoot, if all of that is going trough crappy glass, it’s gonna be a crappy photo. I play daily with a few Canon lenses, and have tried a bunch of them with the years… but recently happen to stumble upon something that I had reluctantly never tried, since I assumed based on the price (never do that… ever… I know now) that it would be no good, since usually what you pay is what you get, but Canon had to prove me wrong on this one.

I’m talking of course of the Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II Lens… the cheapest lens Canon makes if I recall correctly.

This “late review” is aimed at those who, like me, never tried this lens, or to those beginners who don’t know about it, anyhow… what are we talking about here? We’re talking about an all plastic (apart from the actual glass), very light, very cheaply built, EF mount autofocus Canon Lens… the first time you hold it in your hand you actually think “… did I just spent 100 + bucks on this???…”, and if you are at that exact moment right now, trust me, it’s only going up from here…

So build quality… it’s nothing to write home about, in fact, it’s nothing to disturb the guy next to you about, it’s rather cheap and nasty if I’m honest… the plastic of the body feels… well, cheap (learn to like that word, you’re going to read it a lot about this lens). There’s a “cheap” auto or manual focus switch, and a focus ring… and unlike what I read on the web about it not having a focusing ring… it actually does, unlike the more “complex” 18-55mm IS where you actually turn the front element of the lens with you hand, the 50mm actually has a focusing ring that will, when twisted, rotate another piece of plastic that actually focuses… if you’ve got an 18/55mm IS kit lens, then this is nothing like that.

The Autofocus on this little guy is, and there’s no other word for it, noisy, and perhaps not the most accurate… actually, it’s not very good… but it does the job, and the audible focus beeping feedback when manually focusing helps a lot too (BTW that’s the camera doing that).

So far so good… or bad you might be thinking… you’re probably wondering by now where the good part is… it’s not far now… keep reading.

Now we get to image quality… and the relation between this and price… now, if you know a thing or two about Canon lenses, then you probable know that the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 USM L is considered one of the sharpest lenses around… and also the cheapest L lens you can buy today at a tad over 600 bucks… that is amazing image quality for little money down… Well, that’s exactly how I felt the first few shots with this lens… “amazing image quality for almost no money down”, now, I don’t men to say that this lens will outperform any L lenses, nor even a medium grade regular non-L glass… but I bet you any money you can’t get a better picture by spending twice the price… The 50mm F/1.8 is not amazingly sharp, and it’s not fantastically on the contrast side, it’s even a bit soft on the edges, which can be cured stepping up the aperture, but I think that is missing the point of this lens. I often read or hear people talking about using this lens in f/4 or even f/5.6 to get the sharpest image possible, but then why not use the good old kit 18-55 IS lens for that? it will give you better image quality and the added bonus of Image stabilization… no no no… the nifty fifty is not for that, this little guy is all about shooting low light where others can’t (not for less that 5 times the price at least) and it’s also about getting that ridiculously shallow depth of field you can’t get with out a large aperture… and those situations are where this little guy really shines, and my god does it shine!

Here are some examples of how good it can be… please keep in mind this are shots taken with out any preparation nor study, I just grabbed the camera (T2i – 550D) and literally shot a few rounds to put in here…

 

These were all shot at F/1.8… I cannot tell you and you cannot see it there, but in that room there is not much light to work with at all, it’s actually pretty dark… There is no post processing on these pictures besides the fact that I shrink them to put them here, but you can already see that this little guy CAN deliver…

So… we come to value for money… well, I guess it’s all said… the value for money is about as good as it gets… in other words, you cannot go wrong with this lens… ever… and since it’s an EF mount lens, it will follow you to your full frame body as well (although keep in mind that when in used in a full frame body, it will show a bit of vignetting on the corners.)

Final Thoughts…

This thing is a bargain, if you’ve got 100 usd to spare and have an EF-S or EF Canon mount, go and order this lens right now… unless of course you already have the 1.4 or the fantastic 1.2… in which case, you spoiled little pratt! kidding!, but if you’re reading this you probably don’t have neither the 1.4 or 1.2 and you’re going to discover a whole new world with large aperture at hand. The actual lens is an amazing achievement on Canon’s behalf… it performs a lot lot lot lot better than you would expect a lens of that price, did I say a LOT BETTER? oh! ok… A lot better then…

You will find situations for it, or create them just to use it, anyhow, it’s a fantastic little piece of kit, and I take it everywhere I go…

Oh! and as a plus… it’s next to the best thing you could buy if you’re into DSLR video shooting… it just allows for so much more range of lighting conditions to shoot on, specially for indie film makers who don’t have a lot of budgets for lights… and it also sets that nice DOF to give you that extra movie look you want in your films… trust me, it’s a win win situations!

Cheers all!