Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

Whoever wants to buy a prime lens must choose this over others if they are buying their first. compared to 50mm f/1.8 it is a bit pricey but it is worth it when compared to the quality that you will get. At its wide open f 1.4 it gives is soft but cheesy sweet pics but its sweet spot is f 5.6 and f 8 where it is the sharpest. AF is fast and accurate, build quality is nice and sterdy. too bad it doesnt have an IS (image stabilization) but canon 50mm f 1.2 IS may cost an average photographer ...

Excellent lens but now showing it's age. Canon really needs to give us a new one of these. Yet, I use it regularly for it's fast maximum aperture and nice out of focus backgrounds. I find I'm putting it into my bag more and more. It is very difficult to focus handheld at f1.4, you'll want to be very careful as there is little room for error. It's not super sharp in the corners at this aperture either. Often I find I'm shooting at f1.8 and if you're on a very tight budget I'd seriously ...

+ Cheap. Optically fantastic, rivals L lenses. Bad build quality. - Bit inconsistent focus. Slight squeeze would deform the focusing cam making it inoperable.

Its cheap (as far as lenes go) sharp, fast. and ok build quality.

I tried to replace this lens 3 times with Sigma 50 1.4, but thats just not possible. All 3 sigmas ended up having horrible focusing issues. Just gave up trying. This lens is perfectly sharp, somewhat quiet, other USM lenses tent to me more quiet. Some people report that focus motor can break in this little lens, as long as you take good care of it it won't happen. Very good in low light and quick to ACCURATE focus, not like the Sigma.

I own several expensive prime lenses. This is the cheapest prime in my bag, but it is the one I use most because it is the most versatile focal length. Sweet little lens and great value for money. If are tossing up between the 50/1.8II and the 50/1.4, get the 1.4. You won't regret it. Problems: Flare is not very attractive compared to the 50/1.2. It can be a little soft at the edges wide open, but that is true for all fast primes in this category. Construction is little too plastic, but that ...

Had this lens about 6 moths now. My copy is very sharp from 1.8 and good at 1.4. Its nearly always in my walk about bag and yielded some super results - portraits, gigs, street, photojournalism. Yes its not L quality build like my 35mm f 1.4 etc... but so long as you use it in the right environment shouldn't cause you any issues. A joy to use on the 5d mkii and/or 7d - light and very low profile in public places. I cant think of any reason to pay the extra cash to change to the current Canon ...

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This lens is a real joy to use, it's small and light, and has a fast, responsive and quiet autofocus. My greatest concern about this lens is the image quality. At f1.4, it's never really sharp and has some kind of dreamy look (as mentioned in dpreview's review) when there's a lot of light, and that makes it look like it's always slighty out of focus. Problems: Sharpness wide open

Great little lens is in my bag all the time and I use it a lot with my 7D, bokeh is out of this world. No hood with this lens, shame on you canon, got a replacement hood off ebay for under 5 GBP. It could focus from little closer but it's not bad the same as my previous 50mm in sony. Only problem with this lens are chromatic aberrations, not dramatic but not the best lens if you look at that. Overall highly recommended