Review

This is a solid, heavy and well-built lens. The maximum aperture of f/1·4 has practically no usable depth of field, but it will make your auto-focus system jump with joy. Use it at f/8 and smile.

Optics are huge and impressive. One of the best 50mm’s on the market and can easily hold its own against the Takumar lenses. Sharpness, saturation, colour rendition and such are as good as it gets — unless you’re a “chart”-shooting pixel-peeper. For us real-world users this lens is the benchmark and produces excellent images in any situation. For an extra R12K you might consider the EF 50mm f/1·2 L USM, which adds weather sealing.

Don’t also listen to people recommending the EF 50mm f/1·8 II. Optically the f/1·4 is the better lens.

Too bad most of the lens is lost when used on a 1·6x FoVCF camera. Actually, I’d buy a full-frame EOS just to use this lens at its full potential again.

Although primarily an auto-focus lens, it does offer full-time manual focus. Also thrown in is a very rudimentary distance scale, which loses all functionality due to f/22 being the only DoF marked. If you are only going to do one, then pick f/8. It should be mentioned that, although USM, the motor is not the same as in the L-lenses and the full-time manual focus is by means of a clutch. This is OK, but the clutch might give problems if used too much.

As with all Canon lenses, the hood attaches behind the filter thread — to the lens body in this case — which means that it is very difficult to use a polariser filter with the hood in place. Unfortunately the optics, although good, are not so good that the hood can be left in the bag. An after-market hood that attaches to the filter is therefore recommended, instead of the ES-71II, if a PL filter is to be used. Otherwise, the system actually works very nice and the genuine hood is lekker huge — the way we prefer ’em here in sunny South Africa.

That said, the front element does not rotate when the lens extends and contracts when focussing, which is fast, silent and moderately accurate. I have an after-market split-screen in my EOS 30D and unfortunately use it regularly along with the FTM focus ring to correct the lens with sub-1·5-metre subjects.

The lens fits snuggly in your standard tobacco pouch, which offers better protection than the genuine LP1014 pouch, even with the ES-71II hood attached in reverse.

If you have a full frame camera, then you need this lens. On a 1·6x FoVCF camera the EF 35mm f/2 would be a better choice.

Buy the Canon EF 50mm f/1·4 USM lens from: mycamera.co.za

Sample Photographs

This lens is wizard, dude, just wizard!

Canon EOS 30D with Canon 250D Close-up Filter – ISO 400, f/11 & ¹/₅ sec.

Canon EF 50mm f/1·4 USM

Description and Review

Review

Sample Photographs