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

My first lens for the 40D. It took me a few days to get used to this lens and once I fully figured out how to use it with my DSLR I was completely blown away with the image quality. It's great in low light as well.
I highly recommend it.

This lens is made with quality, and produces great pictures with my Canon 40D. Great Portrait photographs, with a professional look. I would definitely recommend this lens to anyone looking to not spend a ton of money on a lens. You cannot beat Canon lenses.

The 50mm 1.4 is a good value for the money. It shoots in less light than the 50mm 1.8 and is better all around. The focus is a bit more accurate and consistent, the contrast and color are more reliable as well. That should be no surprise though, you're paying for an improvement over the 50mm 1.8. It still leaves something to be desired if you have L quality taste, but if you're coming from the 50mm 1.8 you'll find this a fantastic lens. I get 30 percent or so more keepers with this than the 50mm 1.8 due to more consistency in focus and cleaner more consistent color. If you own the 1.8 you should appreciate this as an upgrade, but if you own L glass you will probably find yourself wishing for something even better eventually. The AF is not really fast enough for great action performance in low light like the 85mm 1.8, but some will still shoot with it with a few less keepers and reach. The design is relative to it's price so I can't fault it for some of the extras that come with more expensive lenses. Still a useful lens until Canon upgrades the USM and FTM focus to the real deal in a value package. This lens is Canons only lens to supply FTM (full time manual focus) with a conventional focusing motor. Those that followed went to ring USM and perform slightly better for it. The 50mm 1.2L is Canon's next step above the 50mm 1.4 and is several times more expensive, so the 50mm 1.4 will hold it's own unless Canon does decide to give us an updated Mark II version or a 3rd party steps ahead of Canon to fill that gap.

I'm not a professional by any means, but I do love photography. I bought this lens after lots of consideration because of its qualities as a good macro lens and potential portrait lens.

This lens is so much more. Because of the relatively short distance necessary to create close shots, there is a sense of intimacy created in my photographs that has surprised me far beyond my original expectations.

Portraits do have the tendency to be fairly "in your face", depending on the lighting, and again, depending on the lighting, the skin of your subject's may be a little too "hi-def", but I just attribute this to the macro-quality of the lens. Overall I have been really pleased.

The lens does tend to hunt a bit depending on the light, from my experience, but re-positioning of your own body fixes that.

I have this lens on my Canon K2-- a 35mm camera, and used in combination with different types of films, the results can be spectacular.

Great buy!

This is an absolutely fantastic lens. Every picture comes out looks professional. The f1.4 is amazing!