Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

Purchased this lens just before a trip west to the Balloon Fiesta and sightseeing in Santa Fe. Fabulous low-light shots inside chapels entirely without flash -- looked like daylight inside. Beautiful bokeh in front and beyond focal point. Just remember, it's a prime lens at 50mm -- "sneaker zoom" is required.

This lens takes beautiful pictures! Images look clean and bokeh is soft and buttery. Well built for the money. I'm thoroughly satisfied with my purchase.

Granted, I am a very amateur photographer, but this lens is amazing. The build quality is great. The photo quality is outstanding. This lens really makes portraits pop, and in low light it really makes the colors pop without having to use any flash at all. I have used the f1.8 as well. There isn't a huge difference in picture quality. There is a noticeable difference in build quality though.

If you have the money I would buy this over the f1.8. The f1.8 is amazing too considering what you get for your money.

OK so there's a lot of discussion on whether this is a "good" lens,and it's an OK to good lens for the money. The biggest problems is the chromatic aberration. Now this just could be this particular lens, though there is a lot of discussion on that, too. My experience is this: if you are shooting high contrast color with a lot of dark to light edges, the lens interprets the borders and shadows as a kind of deep green. My particular shot included a white traffic stripe on a black asphalt road, and I was shooting close at 1.4 so any aberration is bound to show up under these conditions. The green aberration appeared mostly in the bokeh, so that might be the final factor in a shot that would force the lens into bad behavior.

There was green fringing along the subject of the shot, and nothing I could do in Lightroom or PS could get rid of it minus a lot of color selection and masking that really should not be necessary.

So I spoke with a knowledgeable friend and showed him the shot and he said that this kind of aberration is not out of bounds for a 350.00 lens under the conditions I was using it in. So really, it ain't L glass but we knew that.

It is fine in the middle focus range of the lens and the middle of the aperture ranges, it will hunt a little (so focus on a contrasty edge because that's where all lenses like to focus), but otherwise it performs quite well.

My gripe is this: Canon, give me a 1.4 50mm lens in the 800 dollar range and I'll snap it up. The price disparity between the 1.4 and the 1.2, while understandable, is too much of a gap to justify spending 1400.00 on the 1.2 lens.

The lens is really just a plinker. Good for fun, but not for serious hunting.

This is an amazing lens to buy. Granted, it seems a little on the pricey side, when compared to the 1.8, but the overall quality is worth the money. The physical build is much better than the 1.8 and it's sharpness is preferable over it's cheaper cousin (especially in the 1.x region - in comparison).

A great buy for anyone that needs a quick, all-purpose lens (great for indoors).