Fun with the Canon EF f/1.8 50mm Prime Lens

Caleb Spare — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:10:12 +0000

As a Christmas gift, I received the Canon EF f/1.8 50mm lens for my XSi. This is an awesome lens for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that it sells for under $100, making it essentially dirt cheap as far as lenses go. The reason that Canon can make a lens with an aperture this large for so little is that it is a prime lens, so it has few parts. The lens is known for having fantastic optical quality, even compared with much pricier lenses, at the cost of relatively poor build quality (it has a plastic housing that apparently doesn’t hold up well to wear and tear).

After messing around with it for a couple of days, I am very happy with it. At 1.8, the depth of field is ridiculous—for example, it is very easy to get the wrong part of a face in focus. The lens has a bit of trouble focusing, particularly in low light, and the motor is fairly noisy. Going for the $350 f/1.4 USM lens would probably fix these problems. I also definitely noticed the lack of IS as compared with the kit lens, but as this thing is so fast I really can’t complain about that. In fact, any criticism of this lens can be more or less rebutted by recalling the absurdly low price.

So, here are a few pictures I took with this thing. Several of them were outside at night, and they were all taken without a tripod(!).

My brother Josh.

The street outside my house. Driving was a challenge today.

A branch on our apple tree.

Our mailbox.

My footprints on our front wall.

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Fun with the Canon EF f/1.8 50mm Prime Lens