EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens International Version (No Warranty)

The product is fine

I'm a "prosumer" photographer, and until now, most of my work has been landscapes. Recently I wanted to branch into portraiture and whilst most of my glass is from Canon's "L" series, there was no way I was going to hand over £1K+ for the L series 50mm prime lens, for an area I'm only dipping my toe into. I was lucky enough to have a kind friend to let me try out his EF 50mm 1.8 MK II (the predecessor to the STM version of this lens) and I was pretty impressed with it, although the build quality of that pervious version leaves a lot to be desired (all plastic including lens mount and the focus drive is clunky, noisy and a bit hit and miss). This new STM version though, is nothing short of superb value for money!! Using the centre-only focus point on my Canon 77D, I was able to capture beautifully sharp images, time and time again. The focus is smooth, quiet and most important accurate and although not quite as rapid as the USM focus mechanism, still more than adequate and impressive for a lens of this budget. The bokeh on this new version is also lovely and circular, thanks to an additional 2 aperture blades compared to the previous version. It does suffer from a little CA and fringing in areas of high contrast (backlit detail near the edges of frame for example) but even my L glass exhibits this and with Canon's Digital Photo Professional 4 software (or the appropriate lens profile uploaded to the camera), this can be well controlled. I've seen good reviews of the cheaper, Chinese brands that compare with this lens and I'm sure they can produce good results. But for me, I prefer to stick to a brand I know and trust, and generally I've been happy with Canon lenses and did not want to diverge from the brand. I'm glad I didn't as this new version of an already great value lens ticks all the boxes, and for me, solves all the shortcomings of the previous MKII version. With the exception of focus speed, I also think the STM focus drive has almost all of the advantages of the USM mechanism, hence why I didn't consider the more-than-twice-the-price 1.4 50mm USM from Canon, which seems to get mixed reviews. The focus ring on this lens is fully electronic, which means there is absolutely no mechanical connection between the focus ring and the focus drive mechanism. Instead, the ring sends a proportional focus control signal to the camera body, which then in turn proportionally drives the auto focus gear in accordance with the ring movement. This makes the focus ring beautifully smooth, seamless and continuous, and also means it can be complete disabled in the camera software (assuming your body supports turning off manual focus override) which means you cannot bump the focus whilst handling the lens during shooting. If like me, you want a lens to take beautiful portraits with, I can only sing this lens's praises. As the cheapest lens I own, it also now ranks as one of my favourites and it's very easy to forget how inexpensive this lens is, when you see the quality of images it can produce!

Prima lens voor portretfotografie! Zeer content mee.

A brilliant lens for anyone looking to up their photography game! Every photo you take with this lens between an aperture range of 1.8 to 3.2 will have the nice depth of field which makes the subject pop in any image. I had to do photography for my cousin's engagement and all I had in my arsenal were a Canon SL2/200D (crop sensor), 18-55mm Kit lens (28-80mm in crop sensor) and a 75-300mm telephoto lens (120-480mm in crop sensor). I knew very well that these lens and camera combination were not the best for a event photography. (trust me! I've tried! The results were not so great) and I was sceptical about renting lenses as I could not be as light headed as I usually am with my own lenses. So, I ordered the 50mm f/1.8 lens on 26th April, 2019 and got it on 27th April, a day before the engagement ceremony (Kudos to Amazon delivery). I tested the lens a day before the engagement and on the day of the engagement, 90% of the photoshoot was done with the 50mm prime lens with 18-55mm lens used only for wide angle group shots. The absence of image stabilisation is not an issue as the lens is light in weight. So, yes, the nifty fifty is a one size fits all kind of lens. However, my camera had a crop sensor (1.5~1.6X), which means the 50mm was actually giving me the field of view of an 80mm focal length. This meant that I had to physically move around a bit to get the framing right. If you have a full frame camera, 50mm would have the field of view of a 50mm. This field of view difference had me over thinking about whether to buy the 24mm f/2.8 (38mm in crop sensor) or the 50mm f/1.8. I finally pulled the plug on the 24mm, bought 50mm because of the 1.8 aperture and decided to compromise on the field of view. Also, the 50mm STM had 7 aperture blades which meant the bokeh would be nearly rounded. In the end, the pictures came out great and had that 'Professional Photographer Click' look to it, everyone loved it. This made the investment totally worth it. The only drawback with this lens would be the auto focus. While it is silent because of the STM motor, it is not the fastest. I did the entire day's photoshoot with Manual focus and the results were really good. So, I would suggest that you use this lens with manual focus only. So, in conclusion, if you are person who wants a relatively inexpensive lens with nice bokeh and depth of field, this lens is just hard to beat. (I will not be sharing photos from the engagement to protect the privacy of the people involved. But, I will share some unedited sample photos to give you an idea about the quality you get from the 50mm prime lens.)

大好き

Amazing lens. Paired with my canon EOS1200D it takes some really stunning photos. It opens extremely wide and for the price it is very hard to beat. the STM motor is fast but it does make a bit of sound as it focuses. It seems like it performs sharper when you stop it down to f4 so if you have ample light its a great option. It performs well throughout the range all the way from f1.8-11 provided you have enough light. A really good first upgrade from a kit lens that comes with your camera.