Is Canon 50 mm f1.8 a good lens;

I was new in photography and I didn't have a clue what a lens was - I am a graphic designer though so I could understand some topics about photography.
I was confused with all the information I was reading and hearing about camera's and lenses.
Should I buy Canon or Nikon camera?
Stick on the default lenses that the camera kit had?
Or buy the camera body and then the canon 50 mm lens separately which I heard so much.
So I was wondering about the quality of this cheap lens (nifty fifty is its nick name).

If I had all those questions I imagine that you will have them too, and that is exactly the reason why I decided to write this review about this photographic lens.

Get more information for this lens on Amazon.co.uk >>>

What i heard?

That you can shoot fantastic photos, you see this part was one of my confusing points. How can this be I said, both were lenses, what was the difference that made the canon 50mm superior to the kit lens 18-55mm;
After all, you could use the 18-55 in many more situations that required a different lens.

Finally I bought the camera kit with the 18-55 lens and I borrowed the 50mm from a friend of mine that was constantly telling me how good this lens was.

After many test I realized the difference and its quality - with one tiny adjustment every photo was sensational.
You are wondering what that adjustment was? 
Read on...

It was the aperture or F-stop. The key feature of this lens is that you can adjust the f-stop as low as 1.8. That tiny adjustment lets a lot more light reach the inside of the camera. As you can imagine
this means that the photos will come out brighter without the need of cranking up the Iso adjustment.

If you crank up the ISO a lot more than the camera can handle the photos come out  with a lot of noise -grain especially in the dark spots of the photo.

Only a lot more expensive lenses have this feature of lowering the f-stop to 1.8
As far as i know there is a Canon lens that goes as low as 1.4 but its price is a lot more than £73.99.
Oh yes that's how cheap this lens is!

Too get things straight, the kit lens that came with the camera (18-55mm) can have minimum 3.5 f-stop.
3.5 has a huge difference from 1.8
Below you can see this difference. Both photos are shot with ISO 100, the only thing that is different is the f-stop.

That's 2 times brighter!!!!
Another difference with this lens is that it is a fixed lens (not zoom lens).
In contrary the 18-55 lens has a range from 18mm (wide angle) to 55mm focal length.
The bad thing is that if the focal length change the f-stop changes with it, from 3.5 up to 5.5.
So if you zoom the lens, the f-stop increases so, less light will come in to the camera, and that means darker photos.

Large F-Stop = More Light Needed
Small F-Stop = Less Light Needed

That also means that we have to find other ways to bring light in to the camera (flash, lights,slower shutterspeed, high ISO).

Another key feature with a fixed lens is that they have less movable parts in them. That makes the lens more rigid and the photos are sharper.

It's uses

As perfect as it may sound unfortunately you can't use it for every situation that you will face as a photographer.

canon 50mm f 1,8

Its mainly use is for portraits and close-ups because its not a wide angle lens.

For example if you lower the f-stop in a dark room to get more light in, and you have more than one faces to shoot, a slightly distance of one person from another can ruin the picture.

The lower the f-stop(aperture) is the smaller the distance of focus (sharpness) will be.
It's so sensitive that if you focus on a human eye the nose will come out blurry.

canon 50mm f 1,8

So if you have 2 faces in the shot, only one will come out sharp. This is a unique effect that if you use it right it can do wonders and makes the photo look professional, as you can see in the images on the left.

Some more bad things are that its made of plastic.
Its very light weighted
Its focus ring on manual mode is very sensitive, but you can overcome that by turning it to auto focus.

Conclusion

If you just started photography its a tool that will teach you one of the most artistic effects of photography, DOF (Depth Of Field). But almost certainly it wont be enough because of its narrow angle.
For example if you want to shoot a small room you wont be able to shoot the whole room with one photo but only a portion of it (maybe one wall). To fit a small room in your photo with that lens you will have to have plenty of room to go back and reshoot your photo but that is in most cases not possible.

As a newbie photographer you will also need a zoom lens to make your life easier.
With a wide angle lens you can shoot landscapes and group of people

You can see more details for canon 50mm here and for Sigma 17-50mm 2.8 here.
Sigma 17-50mm is way better than the 18-55 kit lens and is quite cheap.


Also you can read some Amazon customer reviews

Customer Review

356 of 375 people found the following review helpful  Fantastic for the price!!, 18 Nov. 2006 By  brainleek007 This review is from: Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 II Lens (Camera) Most reviewers of this lens will talk about the lack of build quality and plasticky feel overall - and they are to be believed!! However, don't let this put you off. Yes this lens has a plastic mount, yes the focus ring is narrow and fiddly and yes, the autofocus motor is an older, noisier, slower type but do I care one bit - NO!!! This lens an absolute gem. I thoroughly recommend it as a replacement for the 18-55mm kit lens (I bought it for my Canon 400D) and recommend it simply because it's a great lens in it's own right no matter what you already have. It's a nice focal length for portraits. Where this lens scores highly is its 1.8 f-stop - very fast!!! Images are definitely soft at this setting but acceptable in a pinch. I reckon you'd need to go above A4 prints for it to be noticeable. You always have to remember that you may not have got the shot at all if you didn't have the f1.8 setting so a bit of softness is the trade-off! Noticeable improvement in shrapness is seen at f2.2 and it just gets better from there on in. Stopped down to around f4 - f11 the lens displays stunning levels of clarity and sharpness for the price (by all accounts rivalling L series pro lenses costing much, much more from what others have said- I can't personally verify this but the results I've had are truly excellent.) It also focuses down to 45 cm! To sum up, this lens punches far above its weight. For £65 you will get a lens that gives you fantastic pictures typical of lenses costing many times the asking price. Go for it! 281 of 298 people found the following review helpful Fantastic Prime Lens Style Name: EF 50mm - f/1.4 USM Verified Purchase This is the first prime lens I have bought and I didn't know whether to go for the f1.8 or this one. After much research I went for the f1.4, the build quality is much better, the focussing is improved and that extra stop counts for a lot. The simplicity of this lens is such an eye opener, you have to work for your shots now instead of standing still and zooming in on everything. Your legs become your zoom and because of this you are much more likely to raise or lower your normal eye-level view of the world to find a more interesting angle on a subject. This lens is purely about quality of image, there are no gimmicks, no image stablisation or anything you don't need, you have a focussing ring and an AF/MF switch. That's it. Like every lens the sharpness is improved by stopping down from maximum, at f1.8 the 50mm is like a razor, even wide open at f1.4 the pictures are still pretty usable. But its the image, the colours are beautifully captured, the contrast is excellent, sharpness outstanding and the bokeh (out of focus areas) are so soft and creamy its like gazing into a pan of melted butter. This is the lens you've been looking for, it frees you creatively, lets you make those images you could only dream about before. Sure, it takes a bit of work to get the most from this lens, but the effort will repaid tenfold when you see the results possible with this little cracker. Sure, the f1.8 is a step in the right direction but the f1.4 is the grownup version, built to last and deliver the results time after time. I am not exagerrating when I say that this lens has reinvigorated my photography. If you own a Canon DSLR, you need this, its that simple.   289 of 307 people found the following review helpful Made my new camera sparkle By Amazon Customer on 14 April 2007 Style Name: EF 50 mm f/1.8 II I've got a Canon 400D with the standard kit lens. It's OK but I was a little disappointed by the sharpness that it achieved. After quite a bit of reading up I'd heard so much good stuff about this relatively inexpensive lens that I decided to get one. Most of my pictures are of my kids and many of them are indoors. This lens is great for portraits and because the aperture can be opened to 1.8 it gets enough light that flashless indoor pictures become feasible. The results are great. Nice, natural colours compared to the flash and as others have mentioned, the blurring of the distant background is very pleasing. Having read that it had an old fashioned and noisy focus motor I was expecting something horrific which would cause people to look around if you were taking a picture in public. In reality it's marginally louder than the USM lenses and a little slower. We're talking 25% in my view. It's perfectly useable. In low light, manual focussing is preferable and is very easy. People also say the plastic housing is fragile. Well, if like me you've got a 400D with kit lens, it's not really any more plastic like than the either of those so don't be put off. I've only had the lens one day and I've already taken some pictures which I'll treasure. Only downside of the lens is that at 50mm on a 1.6 ratio camera like the 400D it's a telephoto. In other words, you have to step back a bit to get everything in, so not ideal for indoor group shots. A 30mm lens would be better *but* the one I was looking at was three times more expensive and that's what swung it for this one.