I laugh and laugh at the 1.4 recommendation. Is it a better lens? of course! It is also 4x the price!

Check out the Amazon reviews for this lens and treat the deal for what it is worth!

Reviews

Then look at the product page and browse through the pictures people are taking with it.

Then tell me it isnt worth it.

About the lens:

- The general consenus I have from other photographers is that while the manufacturing quality is not the greatest (plastic casing, slow and loud autofocus), the quality of the photos nakes up for it. In particular, if you do a lot of portrait type work, this is a great lens to have.

About Abe's of Maine:

- These guys had a pretty poor rep for a long time (bait and switch, upsells and poor customer service). That said, a check of ResellerRatings.com todays shows a decent improvement in their score
Link

BTW, I just checked and it is $89 at Abe's now. You can pick this lens up at most Canon dealers. I saw it at Adorama for around $84.

Dang... up to $89 now.

kalm823 said:The kit lens is a good starter lens but is very slow at 50mm. With a film SLR camera where there is no crop factor, 50mm is what the human eye sees i.e. no zoom. With most consumer DSLR there is a built in 1.6x zoom so this is actually a 80mm lens. This is a prime lens which means it is fixed and you can't zoom in and out. The speed (fast or slow) me measured in F stops. The f/1.8 means that the aperture can be very wide which allows you to use a faster shutter speed. I.E. the kit lens is f/3.5 at 50mm verses f/1.8 on the prime lens. If you take a picture using the kit lens at 50mm you have to use 1/50 (slow) second shutter speed verses 1/125 (fast)for the f/1.8. The f/1.8 also blurs the background and makes the foreground very sharp so it's my ideal wedding lens. You can read more about f stops here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number
I have no idea what this means... need to learn a lot more about cameras beyond "point and shoot".

bozo007 said:I have no idea what this means... need to learn a lot more about cameras beyond "point and shoot".

If you have a DSLR or just want to understand more about this stuff, I highly recommend picking up "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. It's a great resource that explains exposure and the relationship between aperture, shutter, and ISO in plain terms that anyone can make sense of. I recommend it to everyone I know that's getting into DSLRs.

verklempt said:I laugh and laugh at the 1.4 recommendation. Is it a better lens? of course! It is also 4x the price!

Check out the Amazon reviews for this lens and treat the deal for what it is worth!

Reviews

Then look at the product page and browse through the pictures people are taking with it.

Then tell me it isnt worth it.

Sold!! Now I just need to pick up a dslr to put this lens on.

IMHO as a long time SLR user with more money than skill, I'd tell you this lens is good for indoors in low light.I suppose it would also be good for fast moving objects but they would have to be close to you. So maybe a pic of a marathon runner going past your position behind the rope. I would say this lens is good for taking pics of kids since they are often moving a lot and the lighting is never good when there is something special happening. .
Keep in mind with these 10 and 12 MP cameras there is ample opportunity to crop the photo into a 4x zoom which would be 200mm or even 300+ with the dslr adjustment.

This is a must-have lens for a DSLR owner. The extra versatility of such a large aperture is amazing, and this lens is incredibly sharp to boot. It's a wonderful portrait and indoor lens.

I also highly recommend Abe's of Maine.

chocoruacal said:No doubt this is an excellent lens for the price. However, once you buy your first real fast (large aperture) zoom, you'll stick the 50 on a shelf and forget about it. Put the $80 towards a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. The flexibility of the zoom outweighs the 1.5 stops you gain with the f/1.8.

I disagree. I have a Sigma 24-60 f2.8 and 18-200 OS, and this Canon lens has been on my camera since my daughter was born 5 weeks ago. It does have shallower depth of field at 1.8, so your area of focus will not be as deep, but the clarity and simplicity is excellent. This lens is definitely better than a Tamron. Don't get me wrong, I have a Tamron 12-24 f4 that I love. It just depends on the situation. For portraits in the living room or band photos at a small club, this is the best I have found for the price. If you need more flexibility and only want one lens, then a 24-70 2.8 would be great, but if you only want one lens, then why buy a SLR. I think this 50mm 1.8 should be a standard second lens , even if the kit lens is the only one you have. When I first tried this lens, I didn't use it much and neither did my firends that had it. Once I figured out what it could do, it is my main lens at the moment. I am mainly doing studio photography work and photographing my baby and food. Once I need more distance, I will move to a 20-something 1.8.

Hm... maybe this is hot, but if so, that's sad. I got this lens, which is a great lens, for $70 a few years ago. Back then that was the price everywhere. Now it seems to be normally $90. Ouch.