With a retail price of just £99.99 in most shops and probably a bit less on eBay it's certainly an attractive prospect. It's actually the most inexpensive lens Canon produces so it should be within the reach of any budding photographer. However, with such a low cost item there come some drawbacks.
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| Shot at the maximum aperture of 1.8 |
Undoubtedly one of the first things you will notice is how light this lens is, at just 130g this is one of the lightest lenses you'll come across. There is one good reason for this. Just about everything, bar the glass, is made from plastic. Plastic body, plastic focus ring and a plastic mount. There's no escaping it. As a result the lens feels very cheap and therefore not particularly durable, I know how un-durable the 50mm 1.8 II can be; my first one fell apart after dropping only 2 feet onto a table.
The second thing you might notice about this lens, now you've mounted it to your camera, is the noisy autofocus. The 1.8 II does not have the Ultrasonic motors that the more expensive lenses in Canon's range have. This means you'll be focusing quite noisily and at a fairly leisurely pace. It's not slow, it's just not as fast as some of the other lenses available on the market. In testing the lens in various light conditions the 50 1.8 II does appear to have a habit of hunting for focus in low light, this can become very frustrating at times which may lead you to manual focusing. If you do decide to flip the switch to manual focus you won't want to be there for long, the focus ring is scratchy, light and has a very short swing. If you've ever used a dedicated manual focus lens then you are sure to be disgusted.
But what about the most important bit? How does the lens actually perform? Extremely well as a matter of fact, despite the apparent cheapness there is excellent performance at the lens's maximum aperture of f/1.8, it's sharper than you might expect. Tests have even shown that this entry level 50mm in the Canon range might actually perform the best in the f/1.8 aperture range, better than the L Series 50mm 1.2! As would be expected, the lens gets significantly sharper as you stop down the aperture, reaching peak sharpness at around f/8.
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| The Canon 50mm 1.8 II with lens hood |
On a crop sensor body there are no real signs of vignetting, chromatic aberration or any form of distortion, because after all, most people who buy this lens are going to be using a APS-C sensor. But it's a great all around performer on any camera, full frame or otherwise.
If you do plan on buying this lens I would recommend the lens hood to go along with it. With any high quality optic a UV filter can visibly reduce detail in your photos despite protecting your front element. The lens hood not only protects from potential knocks but also protects from stray light that could cause lens flare.
So, if you're in the market for a new lens to compliment your kit lens then this is a great option, you'll let in 4x more light than the 18-55mm kit lens at the same focal length and the images will be noticeably sharper.
If I were to give this lens a percentage score based on image quality, build quality, satisfaction and value for money I'd probably rate rate it around 77%. The build quality really lets this lens down, as does the fact you'll be spending another £10 on a lens hood. However, there are redeeming features that eventually give the 50mm 1.8 II a healthy score. I definitely recommend this lens if you have a tight budget or need a spare lens.
Keep checking back for when I compare the 1.8 II to the mid-range 1.4!
Aww Yeah, cool!
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