Canon 50mm f1.8 II

Been meaning to make this lens review, but I had a hard time thinking of how to go about it. In the end, I decided to present it in a very basic manner without using instead of going through indepth techniques used in a 1.8f aperture setting.

The 50mm f1.8 II is a compact lens that allows you to shoot at higher apertures. Personally I love everything about this. Weight, aperture, price and size.

I do believe that every DSLR owner should have a 50mm f1.8 in their arsenal. Nikon and other brands have it as well. This model is actually the cheapest model there is in the market (around 4,500php- that’s 90-100USD), and it’s one of those things that you won’t regret buying.

The biggest problem that everyone has with this lens is that it’s mostly made of plastic, which means it has less durability points compared to other lenses. I had one before, but eventually I had to replace it because the zoom got stuck pretty bad when I went to Singapore. Planning to dissect it soon lol.

One of the things you guys will notice when using apertures 1.8 or higher is that more light enters the camera and thus your pictures will be brighter, the trade off is that the focal point will be shorter. These nendo puchis were shot at f3.5 using a standard kit lens

This one was shot at f7.1. You’ll notice that the camera focuses further than the previous picture, but the picture becomes darker. The darkness and warmth can easily be cured using an editing program such as Adobe Lightroom.

Finally, this one was shot at f2.0 I believe. Notice that the background is all blurred which enables us to focus more on the subject matter. Lighting is also better at this aperture.

Again, another example is Milla here. She was shot at f2.0 again and you can see how “soft” the focus is in this picture.

Background and other details are now coming into focus at f3.5.

Most of Milla is now seen in full detail including her gorgeous hair. I normally use f7.1 when I do figure reviews because i want everyone to see the figure in it’s entirety without any sort of ‘beautification’ on the figure’s part. though going to higher apertures does have it’s charms especially when you try to recreate “bokeh” effects.

Using higher aperture settings does have it’s merits. It allows you to have pictures with bokeh effect and have a soft focus. The soft focus allows you to be less distracted with the background and other things you want to talk about less in the photo.

For instance if I want to concentrate more on the wings Necro and Undine, but I dont want my viewers/purveyors to be distracted with Dizzy herself, I can use soft focus from higher apertures to do just that.

I really should review Dizzy at some point, primarily because she’s one of my favorite characters in the Guilty Gear series.

The 50mm f1.8f lens, regardless if it’s a Canon or a Nikon, is highly useful in any photo opportunity. The only downside might be it has no zoom, since it’s a prime lens/ But because of this, you will be able to learn how to compose your photos better (and get some exercise from all that ‘manual zooming’ as well). I do recommend getting this after you get your DSLR since the limit of the kit lens is at f3.5. Happy shooting!

2 replies
  1. wieselhead
    wieselhead says:

    Once I also owned this cute little lens, it has a cool DOF.
    I love when the background is blurred out ^^

    Unfortunately I sold it as I switched to Sony DSLR, soon I’ll switch to Canon, good that I at least kept some lenses 🙂

    Reply
    • Anton Eduque
      Anton Eduque says:

      Why not just get a lens adapter for it? Though personally I’m not fond of lens adapters because they do sometimes damage the lenses 😛
      How’s Sony for you so far?

      Reply

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