Canon EF 50mm lens
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| Good for still life 03/02/2009 The AF is slow, typically I just keep it on manual. However the pictures you can get with this lens is fantastic. By Mr. P. A. Adamson | |||||
| Oldie and almost goldie.... 15/05/2008 For the price you pay, I think this lens is a bit of an unsung hero. It's an old design and has its limitations - slow focusing and hunting in low light. However, what you do get is a fast, very sharp, sturdily constructed and adaptable lens that's a good buy if you don't have lots of money to splash on glass. The macro works well and is especially suited to product or studio macro work. I use it for photographing my miniatures and it produces awesome razor sharp close-ups that show my painting ability up! Also good for portraits and will even work as a walk-round at a push. I find myself wanting greater magnification for creepy-crawly pics, but I'll definitely be keeping this lens even if I acquire a 100mm or MPE65. **Update** I continue to use this lens A LOT. The good - it's very sharp and has lovely bokeh quality. Colour reproduction is very natural and pleasing. The bad - AF is poor by todays standards. Slow and susceptible to hunting. Despite the AF, it's a cracking lens and wipes the floor with the 50 1.8. By S. Symonds New Zealand these days! | |||||
| Nice lense for a nice price 20/05/2010 This is a great lense, with caveats. I prefer it to the nifty 50 since you can do everything the nifty can and get much closer to the subject. When you have focus dead-on, it just can't be beat (except by a better L macro lense). But, like another poster had commented, it grabs the wrong focus point at times. I find that anything lower than 4.5 simply delivers a fuzzy picture. Above 4.5 it is sharp as heck. I'm looking forward to upgrading to the new EF 100mm IS macro soon. But I'll keep this little gem. By C. Liao | |||||
| awwwwesome Lens!! 11/03/2010 I got this awesome little lens a few weeks ago at a camera store for 319.99... too bad i forgot about amazon! I wanted it so bad when I saw it, so i bought it. Worth every dime! This lens is not only an awesome 50mm macro, its extremely compact and weighs so little! You can get great depth of field opportunities with this lens, and also have a kick ass macro for less than 3 Benjamin's! I highly recommend this lens for first time macro users, or experienced users who want the portability of a macro. By Andrea Misuraca North California | |||||
| Too much chromatic aberration for the digital age, but the lens is of a good value 25/02/2010 For less than $300, this is a pretty decent 50mm lens, but it's not the best choice unless you do simple, straight-macro work. Why? In my experience, for 1:10 or smaller magnification (focusing distance of about 0.6m or 2 ft), Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras provides better contrast and image sharpness than this lens at any aperture value. So, the only time this lens is the better choice is close distance macro work. Now, when I use this lens at 1:2 to 1:5 magnification range, the resolution and contrast are good, but I noticed a bit too much chromatic aberration (CA) with shiny objects such as jewelries and silverware. The color is magenta and green, depending on the distance of the object in relation to the focusing distance. The CA decreased to some extent by stopping down. A significant drop of CA was seen at f/8 for 1:5 and f/11 for 1:2 magnification, although CA was still noticeable at those f-stops. Sure, at such magnifications, you would stop down to about that range anyway, due to very thin depth of field, but I would be happier of CA was lower from wider apertures for a bit more creative flexibility. Meanwhile, it's not impossible to correct for CA in professional image editing softwares, but that just means more editing work. The lens is excellent for non-shiny small product shoots, such as hair accessories, cosmetic products, food, etc., although tilt shift would be useful whenever the image uses creative styling. Therefore, for creative macro work, TS-E45mm with extension tube and/or 1.4x extender would be more useful, although there is a price to pay in terms of dollars, pounds, and more demanding manual work. Whether 100mm macro is better or worse is not so much of an issue as other people say. EF100mm f/2.8 macro provides more working distance and flattens perspective (which may or may not be good for product photography), but not as different as what you can do with TS-E as a macro lens. About the only thing this lens is superior to Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras at non-macro work is that this macro gives more pleasing bokeh than f/1.4. But for that matter 85mm f/1.8 or TS-E90mm is better, and so this isn't a good reason to buy this lens. In short, EF50mm f/2.5 macro lens is good for simple, straight-forward macro work. If you don't do macro, buy Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras or Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens. If you use more elaborate styling or creative work, buy Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 Tilt Shift Lens for Canon SLR Cameras or Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8 Tilt Shift Lens for Canon SLR Cameras. If you do macro work of jewelry or any other shiny or high contrast objects, be careful about chromatic aberration and stop down as needed. By Ryuji Suzuki Cambridge, MA USA | |||||
