Canon EF 50 mm 1.8 STM Lens - Compact and Lightweight Lens for Canon DSLR Cameras, Fast Aperture, Smooth Focusing - Ideal for Portraits and Creative Photography

I've just bought this lens to replace my 50mm f1.8 lens which fell apart after 6 years use. I was attracted by others' reviews and the compact design, fast aperture of 2.8 and the fact it's an EF lens so when I eventually upgrade to a full frame Canon, it will still be useful. I've been using it for best part of a week so far and I'm very pleased with it. It's great in low light, ultra compact and great build quality for the money. I paid £150 with p&p, and it's already come down 20 quid in price, but it's worth the extra 20 quid and more. The lens has more detail throughout the frame than my old 50mm f1.8 II Canon lens and I am now feel i should have gone straight to this lens in the first place. It gives me 64mm focal length on my 1.6 x cropped sensor of the 60D I use, which to be fair is perfect for group shots and portraits. I'm slightly more in the face of portrait subjects than with the 50mm, but the lens has a much smaller profile being a pancake design, so it hasn't yet seemed to intimidate any of my subjects. The focusing is quick and near silent. I've used the manual focus ring on the lens which is oddly, but cleverly electronic, so there is a fraction of a second delay, but it's still quicker than auto focus (depending on you of course and how quickly your eyes focus on the viewfinder). The build quality is excellent and it has a nice weighty feel in the hand, but feels perfectly balanced on the camera. Shots are sharp throughout the frame at all apertures that i have found, whereas the 50mm 1.8 could soften a little round the edges at f1.8 (but was ok from around f3.2 and above). I can see me using this lens for most shots now other than wide angle shots. It's not often i use zoom functions on my longer lenses, so this could be my 'walk around lens'. Each to their own i know, but i love it. The 50mm lens was a great lens, but unfortunately, the ease at which it appears to have broken (haven't a clue how it happened, because I didn't drop it or knock it) has put me off buying another. If I ever do go for another 50mm it will probably be the £1200 L series f1.2 when i eventually upgrade to a 5d III.....one day. Right now, that's far too expensive for me to justify as I'm not a pro (not yet anyway ;-)) Right now, this lens fulfils 90% of shooting requirements from a focal length point of view. Clever Canon. It's made in Malaysia, not Japan, which was my only slight apprehension when buying this lens, but I'm very pleased so far and the build quality is great as i said. If you don't quite want to stretch to £300ish for the f1.4 50mm and are, like me, now non-confident in the 50mm 1.8 II, this 40mm f2.8 EF is a great, economically in between alternative and i highly recommend it. By the way, I ordered it on a week day in the morning and had it by tea time the next day direct from Amazon.

This is a beaut of a lens. It is small. Cheap BUT super low f, so bright, fast and stm in this latest version for fast, quiet autofocus. I also got the 24mm and a 55-250 to have a decent selection of lenses after some youtube time. This is perhaps the worlds best selling lens and came highly recommended. This version is even better with multiple improvements like more metal for plastic and stm autofocus. Great for localisation/bokeh so I can focus in on what I am interested in with lovely background blur a.k.a. bokeh. Being f1.8, get bright images with colours. I have not tried it out in the dark or with fast shutter speeds to test it out BUT it is the best selling lens and the pics that I saw on youtube with it were amazing. As with most things camera wise, worth checking out if can get 2nd hand since get great prices and as new in most cases. This is ideal for portrait or product photography. 24mm compliments it nicely, for some wide angle. Also remember with crop cameras 50mm behaves like 80mm in full frame. A lovely lens and so far I would say that I would have been just as happy if I only had this lens since I use it for nearly all my pics. I'll play around with the other ones and there are shots which the 24mm let me take. Will not regret getting this and will be hard to remember how you survived without it once you have it!

This is a very good lens for the price. It's a 50mm prime lens and you should note that on a crop sensor camera this would be around 80mm which basically means the view will be zoomed in. This isn't perfect for in door shots unless you are in a large room but that's just a note to make. The 1.8 F-stop is great for low light situations when compared to the starter lens kit which goes down to 3.5 (i believe) so this means you can shoot in doors or when it gets darker without resorting to a highier ISO shutter adjustments. I shoot video so I need to stick to some rules for my ideal shot when it comes to motion blur etc. The lens has a great focus ring because it's not right on the front like with the starter kit lens, it's set back a little and is a bit larger making it easier to pull focus. You get a nice circular bokeh effect with this lens when doing a depth of field shot. The downside of using this lens specifically when shooting film is the noise. It's not terribly loud but it is noticeable. If you are shooting outside with a lot of ambient noise from the traffic etc it might not be so bad but in doors it's not great. So imagine you are shooting two characters and you want to rack focus between them and the primary sound is the dialogue, well you can be sure you will have to do some ADR to correct that in post so have your actors on standby. Of course for a shot without changing focus it's really nice For still photography it's great I am comparing all these things to the starter lens because I would imagine most people considering to buy this lens would be looking for an upgrade to their starter lens and the variable starter lens can also reach a focal length of 50mm (18-55mm). I guess the noise is the only thing you can complain about and that only really counts if you are filming and you are adjusting the focus through the shot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good: F/1.8 - Good bokeh and good amount of light let in Bad: Auto focus is loud and crazy and focus in general is a little noisy but manual focus isn't that bad unless you are shooting quiet video Good: Focus ring is a little thicker and it's not right at the front of the lens making it easier to pull focus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I always use manual focus but i tried the auto focus to test it out and it's horrible, it didn't work great and it makes a crazy noise when doing it. It's not a smooth transition, imagine starting a car engine but altering the noise frequencies. If you have a solid 'subject' in the scene like a person the sound from the lens is like a laser printer when using the auto focus. With the manual focus it's a nice smooth transition/sound so it doesn't sound like your camera is a bag of crap. I have really pointed out the noise but that's the only real negative and it's not that bad especially for taking stills, i just wanted to give you some idea of what to expect. The final thing that makes this lens awesome is if you fiddle with the focus ring moving it back and fourth really fast you can make it sound like BB-8 from star wars.

Over the years I've owned all of Canon's 50mm AF lenses. For the price this one is exceptional value. Build quality is very good, high quality plastics, nice newer lens cap design and good to see a metal lens mount again. It's a big improvement over the all plastic EF 1.8 ii which just felt a bit like a toy lens, though still more than capable of producing stunning results in the right hands. I bought this lens to sit alongside my Canon 50mm 1.2 because both lenses have their own unique strengths. This new 50mm STM is fantastic for times when you want something small, lightweight but still having great image quality. The image quality once stopped down is exceptional - and it's good wide open too. I'll mostly be using this lens for landscapes where I want extremely high resolution at about f/8. The quality of the out of focus areas (bokeh) is good, better than the 50 1.8 ii which often had a pentagon shape to highlights. However doesn't compare to quality of the cream you can achieve with the 50 1.2 in my opinion. Still that lens cost a *lot* more and is rather a specialist portrait lens. Overall this lens comes extremely highly recommended for beginners and seasoned users alike as it gives very affordable access to image quality that far exceeds most standard kit lens. In fact image quality once stopped down is just superb. You can both play with very shallow depth of field for wonderful, highly creative images and also stop down for incredibly high resolution, detailed images. For those interested in the difference between the 50mm 1.2 and 1.8 I've added a very rough and ready comparison showing the bokeh from both lenses at max aperture and at close focus of the 1.2 on a full frame body. As you can see the 1.2 blows out the background much more than the 1.8. This may seem a relatively subtle difference be it can be used to great effect if used carefully. The 1.8 STM certainly provides exceptional performance/value for a fraction of the cost (and weight) of the 1.2. However I certainly have no plans to sell my 1.2 - in my opinion they work well together, each for a different job. Good points: + Super small lightweight lens + Good build quality and has a metal mount, big improvement over the 1.8 ii + STM AF is quiet and fast (but not as quiet as USM) - can't comment on video but very good from what I've read + Good sharpness wide open at 1.8 and very sharp stopped down to f/5.6 to f/8 + Good close focus ability + Full time manual focus Weaker points: - No lens hood supplied but considering price point not surprising - Lots of vignetting wide open (a minus for most people, but personally I like this + easily corrected in post) - a bit of fringing at wide apertures, easy to correct in post Other options are: - Canon 50mm 1.4 USM lens. Image quality is about the same stopped down, but it offers better image quality wide open at f/1.4 to f/4. - Sigma 50mm 1.4 ART - not used this lens but gets very good reviews. Great bokeh and very sharp. Price wise possibly competes more with the 50 1.2 and from what I hear it's sharper. This may be what you want, but for me I'd rather have something just slightly softer in portraits for a more flattering look. Overall you can't really go too wrong with this lens, it does it's job and it does it well.

I must have watched over 10 YouTube videos on this lens, and read 20+ articles and reviews on websites before getting it. I'm not able to easily just buy lenses, as they cost ££££... The price seamed to good to be true, it's a real bargain, hence why I researched it thoroughly before buying it. My advice get it, it's sharper than most canon lenses, right into the corners. Even the 50mm 1.4 is not as sharp as this lens. UPDATE after a month Ok so first off when you buy this lens, one major thing to be aware of, it's quite commonly sold with an old version of the firmware. If the serial number on the lens is xx0, or xx1 even xx2 then you have the older firmware, e.g if the third digit on the serial number is less than 3 you need to update the firmware from the old 1.10. To the new 1.2.0 The reason for this is there is a fault with the lens, where it gets sort of jammed and won't focus if pressure is applied to the front of the lens or the focus ring. This problem is completely resolved in firmware version 1.2.0, if your Lens serial number is xx3, e.g the 3rd digit is a 3 or higher, the lens is a newer version and already has the update. I ordered my lens from amazon in 2013 and was a little surprised it had an older serial number xx2, and needed this firmware update to be done by myself. Ok so to update the firmware, you need a camera with the ability to update "lens" firmware, which only the eos 650D, the 700D and the 5D mark iii can do. I got lucky and a friend has the 700D, I put the firmware file on an SD card (available from canon website) took my lens and SD around to his house and updated my lenses firmware In what took a few seconds At most, I was not able to do this on my older canon 60D, so was lucky he had a more recently released camera. Right now that's out of the way, and please don't let the firmware put you off, you could pop into a camera shop and ask them to do this for you too, sure most palaces would help you use a display. Model of the 5D mark iiii to do it, Otherwise you will have to send it to canon, but that feels a bit like overkill, Sooooo back to the actual lens, it's truly my favourite lens, I hardly use my zooms, my 50mm f1.8 or kit lens.... This little 40mm f2.8 is just so sharp from corner to corner and has such little distortion or chromatic aberration that it quite simply gives me the best photos out of my camera iv ever taken. I love the 40mm it's superb on a crop sensor 60D, it makes the camera so light weight and small, compared to any other lens, that I removed the strap and camera bag, and carry my DSLR in my coat pocket, like its a bridge camera, which means I have my camera with me more often, and thus can take more street photography and pics of the kids. The lens enables you to use your DSLR is a more subtle, small camera way, I feel less self conscious using my camera In busy public places with this lens, and the beauty is it's taking superbly sharp photographs, better than some bigger lenses. So in summary, it's small, it makes your camera (especially a non heavy crop 60D) super handy and portable in your pocket, it takes crazily sharp beautiful photos, and costs less than 99% of the lenses canon make, it should cost more as the build quality and image quality are as good as the more expensive 50mm F1.4, which it actually out performs when both lenses are set to F2.8, it's far sharper!! Than the 50mm especially in the corners where the 50mm goes a bit soft. Yes it's not as great I'm low low light as an F1.8 or F1.4, but it's blumin close, and does create nice broker, So it's really a win win lens, seriously stop reading this, go buy it and love how your camera suddenly becomes a pocket camera, (largish pockets) that's super sharp, and less attention grabbing.

The problem with using terms like "amazing image quality" and "fast focus" is that these will depend somewhat on what comparison you're basing it off. The image quality is amazing, and if you want better image quality you can have it, kind of, but it wont be amazingly different even if you're spending 10/15x the price. The images coming from this relatively cheap lens are some of the nicest I've taken, and it's a big step up from some lenses costing much more. The aperture is f1.8 which is fine for 99.9% of everything, plus or minus 0.1%. Going for 1.2 or 1.4 is probably not worth the quadrupling or decupling (i'm sure that's the word) what you spend for 1 or 2 more notches you probably wont use unless you're a specialized specialist doing very special things occasionally. If you're coming from zoom lenses of f3.5 or f4 then you'll gain a nice chunk of space to play with which opens up a whole range of image types you didn't have as much access to before! There are 7 apeture blades, which is perhaps fewer than some much more pricey lenses, but the bokeh (out of focus highlights) looks nice, and shooting at f1.8 the bokeh is 100% spherical. The autofocus is fast, though like basically every lens on the planet may struggle a bit in low light. It's not noisy but it's louder than other more recent STM motors. It's perhaps not the best lens for using during movie shooting for when you have to use onboard sound recording. Though it does have one strange side benefit of making cats sometimes look at you, which makes for nice portraits. The body is light and sturdy. It's of a nice length so the focus ring is comfortable to use. Though being at the end means that using a lens hood is useful to stop your fingers wandering into the frame. It's small enough to shrink the size of your camera to a rather more manageable size than with the typical lens that comes with a body. Which means that it makes the camera kind of easier to take out with you. The focus motor is the "floating" type and extends and retracts the front, though it doesn't rotate. This means that you can put really heavy stuff on the end, but is fine for filters and typical things. The mounting flange is metal, and the red dot is easy to line up, and erm, there's not much to say about this. One thing that people don't speak much about is how nice a macro lens this makes. Buy a set of macro tubes, such as these Andoer Viltrox DG-G Auto Focus AF TTL Extension Tube Ring 12mm 20mm 36mm Set Metal Mount with Covers for Canon EF EF-S 35mm Lens DSLR Camera and you'll have yourself a nice 1.58x macro lens. Of course this isn't a full on macro lens and your working distance is about 5cm from the end of the barrel, but it's cheap and gets come great results! I think I could go on for about about 90 pages about tiny things so i'll stop there. It's a nice lens, that is very cheap and very useful for everything like day to day photography, portraiture, (macro) and many more. It's probably one of the first lenses i'd recommend any newer camera person getting, because of the extra sharpness.

Optically this lens is great, a marginal improvement on the EF 50mm 1.8 II (Nifty Fifty or Plastic Fantastic), nice bokeh at a budget price. In terms of build quality it's better still; featuring a plastic body with a nicer finish (subjective I suppose) and a metal mount as opposed to the plastic mount of it's predecessor, the sloppy feeling focus of the Nifty Fifty is totally absent. The focusing ring is far better and of more conventional design (see below though) but only works when the camera is powered up. Manual focus override is possible when in AF by half pressing the shutter button and then adjusting focus using the focus ring. For some reason the STM focusing motor isn't as unobtrusive as my other STM lenses (18-135mm and 10-18mm). If using the camera mic for video work [shudder...] then it's likely that the sound will feature in your audio. If the mic is off camera then you shouldn't have any problems. Maybe it's the fact that it makes a noise that give this impression but it does seem a touch slower to focus as well. Even with manual focusing the noise if still there as the motor seems to remain engaged, this doesn't happen at all with my other STM lenses. These noise issues, for me and my use of this lens, results in the loss of one star. The focusing ring is a vast improvement over the wonky hard to reach one on the nifty fifty though it is level, or as close as makes no difference, with the barrel of the lens. This makes using a ring for a follow focus, which is wider than the focus ring, foul the barrel. The solution that I use is to carefully place a rubber band around the focus ring. Our postman uses red rubber bands so, from a distance (if you squint), my new 50mm could be mistaken for an L lens ;-) I'm not convinced that the fly-by-wire STM focusing system works accurately with rack focusing, i.e. returning to the same focus point for a given position on the focus ring. I will do some tests and amend this review in due course. Both with manual focus and Magic Lantern's rack focus function. I have yet to fully decide if this will replace the nifty fifty as there are pros and cons to both. There is a snap-on focus ring for the nifty fifty that will engage with industry standard follow focus gears (search shapeways.com for 'Nifty Fifty'), this in a 3D printed part from the US. I have ordered one of these anyway despite buying the STM 50mm. The eventual looser will probably find it's way into my daughters camera bag. I would love the f1.2, or even f1.4, 50mm but can't justify the expense. Either this or the Nifty Fifty make a great alternative for the budget concious photographer and videographer so long as you can accept or adapt to their foibles.

I love this little pancake lens. I use it with a crop sensor camera giving an effective focal length of 64mm which is perfect for portraiture. It is an EF lens so can be used on full frame or crop sensor camera bodies. This little lens is one of the most discrete lenses you can put on your DSLR. It is tiny. When you put the lens cap and back cover on the lens it doubles in length. Focussing is silent and fast using Canon's new stepper motor (STM) technology, this makes it particularly useful for video work (although I mainly shoot stills). My favourite use of this lens has been for street photography. This little lens is very discrete and does not draw attention which is useful if you want to capture natural activity and expressions. The focal length works well for me whenI'm in town, although you do have to get fairly close to your subject if you want them to fill the frame. The main joy of prime lenses is the beautiful sharp images they produce, and this lens is no exception. They also force you to really think about composition, making good use of your legs to capture your subject in the frame perfectly. In summary, this lens is a no-brainer purchase. It is well priced and gives lovely images. It is small enough to fit in anybody's kit bag (or even your pocket!). If you don't own any prime lenses and are still using your kit lens you should certainly consider the 50mm f/1.8 (or f/1.4 if your budget is bigger) before this lens as you can achieve much shallower depths of field with that wider aperture and lovely bokeh/background blur, but after that this is the second prime I would buy.