The Ultimate Canon 50mm Lens

Canon 50mm Lens

Canon makes four different 50mm lenses ranging from very inexpensive to very expensive.  One of them is a compact macro lens but we’re going to limit ourselves to their top three products, ranging in quality and price.  Let’s take a look at each of these three offerings.

Canon 50mm Lens: EF f/1.8 ii

This is Canon’s bottom of the line lens and you can pick one up for around a hundred bucks.  So, does the “you get what you pay for” adage apply here?  What can you really get – especially from industry leader Canon – for such a low price?  Well that depends on who you ask.  Everybody seems to agree it’s cheaply made.   It’s entirely made of plastic – even the lens mount.  On the upside, it’s small and very light.  So although some think of it as a toy, it is a toy you can easily fit in a shirt pocket.  The lens starts to look a little better when you look at its performance.   The lens motor is noisy and it has no distance markings, but it does deliver sharp pictures and it’s very good at low light indoor   photography.  Although this is a fast lens there is a design flaw with the blades that can result in images out of focus in certain areas of the picture.  Despite its shortcomings, the compactness and especially the price make this an attractive offering.

Canon 50mm Lens:  EF f/1.4 USM

This is the next model up the line and it is a favorite of many.  You can get one for somewhere between three hundred fifty and four hundred dollars.  This leads many advocates of this lens to question why anyone would go for the f/1.8.  Maybe because it costs more than half as much?  Although this lens is also made primarily of plastic, it does have a metal lens mount and distance markings.  The motor is reasonably quiet and it delivers great overall image quality.  It is also lightweight and compact and has enough feature improvements over the cheaper f/1.8 to make it a better choice in the eyes of many.  Think of this lens as the midpoint in the Canon line.

Canon 50mm Lens:  EF f/1.2 L USM

Okay you knew it was coming.  Here’s the top of the line – the famous L series and this lens goes for around fifteen hundred dollars.  There is nothing cheap about this lens.  Like all L series lens, Canon spares no expense in the design and construction of this lens.   This lens has a wider aperture than the other two, it is made primarily of metal and it’s quieter.  Like other L series lenses, it’s weather sealed.  While it delivers extremely sharp pictures, some wonder whether the increased quality is worth the hefty jump in price.  This lens cost almost five times more than the f/1.4.  But its other performance improvements – flare and color and contrast control as well as better out of focus control – makes the price gap look a little less severe.  And after all, it does have the red stripe!