Instead of just writing a Review on B&H, it seemed necessary to give this little, ultra-useful piece of gear a little more credit than just a star rating and simple paragraph. This gear I am talking about is the famous “nifty-fifty” Canon lens, a 50mm f/1.8 jewel that can be had for less than a Benjamin (thats $100 for all the techies who don’t use paper money anymore). Instead of going into the aberration characteristics, and MTF curves, lets get to the point- this lens is a bargain and should be in your bag or on your camera at some point in your lifetime.

Tackling the first audience, prospective or starter (I hate the word “beginner”) photographers, I would recommend this lens as the first lens you buy. The one thing the nifty-fifty will contradict is the phrase “spend more on your glass than your camera body”, and while that is insanely good advice, unless you know exactly what type of photography you will be doing, look at your budget, subtract $100 for this lens, and buy a nice body. Now if we were to really get into it, I would make sure I had an external flash, and some other small accessories before I got that 21mp body and had to rely on the pop-up flash, but thats another subject in itself. Suggestions are no good without some backup:

1. Aperture

The nifty-fifty’s f/1.8 will have a shutter speed of 1/160s, versus a lens with f/2.8 having a shutter speed of 1/60s. If your not familiar with these, those shutter speeds are the difference between having to be very steady (1/60s) and fast enough for some sporting events (1/160s). Long story short, it will let more light it, so you can shoot in darker situations without bumping up the ISO and introducing a bunch of noise.

2. Size

This thing is light. Sure, its made of plastic mostly, feels like a toy, but it still takes a darn good photo! A 50mm lens will frame a persons shoulders and head very well from about 5ft away, so if thats a range you can work with slap this sucker on and enjoy a light camera you can toss around.

3. Fixed or “Prime” Lens

If your just starting, playing with a zoom lens takes away from really learning how to operate a camera. You will learn more about framing, proper camera settings, and creating the shot than you would if you were messing with zooming. Also, the nifty-fifty is fast! It isn’t an ultrasonic motor, but it snaps into focus extremely fast and not loud at all. The sharpness of a zoom vs. a prime lens (single focal length) is becoming debatable for expensive lenses, but a cheap prime lens like this kills anything zoom in its class when it comes to a quick focus and clarity.

So whats the only thing in the Canon lineup that rivals the popularity of the nifty-fifty? Well most photographers would say its the Canon IS USM 70-200mm f/2.8 (or even the f/4) telephoto lens.

The Canon 50mm and 70-200mm

This bad-boy would be a great number-two lens for any Canon owner looking to get a little more serious, and the duo could arguably cover 85% of all photo work. So why stack these up next to eachother? Well, simply because the results are similar, and they have about a $1,600 price difference! Any professional knows the differences, and why they are priced like this, but they are both sharp, and produce some clean results. Random Mission: to snap a photo with each lens of some headphones,  no prep, no editing:

Nifty-fifty 50mm Canon f/1.8 1/60s ISO200 Canon T1i

70-200mm Canon IS USM Telephoto f/2.8 1/100s ISO800 Canon T1i

So I switched up the framing a little (thats why we use different lenses in the first place), but you can see we got an almost equally gorgeous photo from both situations, and this was just a random shot of a random item. Moral to the story is, if you are just getting going, dump the kit lens PLEASE and get a nifty-fifty instead, or if your already caught in the trap of photography, try to get your hands on one of these things as soon as you can! Below is a gallery of some recent images we have taken for Alexander Customs and Sweet 220 with the nifty-fifty.