norman hammer dot com

Before purchasing this lens the only lens I had available to me was the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my Canon Rebel XSi. I wanted to add a fast lens to my collection that would allow for good low light picture taking and also smaller depth of field. I saw this lens mentioned quite a bit and since it's priced under $100 I took the plunge. Did it fulfill the tasks I hoped it would?

For the most part it did. The image stabilization on the kit lens allowed me to hand hold low light shots without camera shake, but due to the slow shutter speed the subject needed to hold very still or they would be blurry. On the 50mm lens, the large aperture, allows for a shutter speed high enough for most subjects to not blur from movement.

The large aperture also allows for a smaller depth of field. This allows for better shots with the subject becoming isolated with the immediate foreground and background becoming blurred. The kit lens allowed for some subject isolation but nothing near the degree that is possible with the 50mm. Additionally with the 1.6 focal length modifier on the Rebel XSi the 50mm becomes the equivalent of an 80mm lens on a 35mm film camera, which is a good focal length for portrait work.

This lens also takes really sharp pictures. The 50mm lens has been around for 20+ years and the optics are pretty close to perfect. When the aperture is set to either extreme the photos get a bit soft but with that aside the photos are sharp and beautiful.

There are unfortunately a few downsides which can be expected from a lens that costs under $100. The first is the build quality of the lens. While the glass is high quality the body is made from all plastic. In my opinion this is a reasonable exchange for the low price point. Another downside is the ability of the auto focus. The auto focus is slow on this lens and it also has some problems focusing in really low light. This creates a bit of a rub as the large aperture makes it good for low light, but the auto focus performs poorly during these conditions. To add insult to injury the manual focus ring is really narrow making manual focus difficult at times.

Overall this lens works really well and for the low price point has a tremendous bang for the buck. While there are a couple of negatives with this lens, don't let that scare you away from one of the best deals around.

Here are a couple of samples I have taken with the lens. (Click for large version)