Why Everybody Needs the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens

Sitting in at around $100, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 is Canon's most inexpensive lens to date. I was lucky enough to receive this lens as a gift, but it is safe to say this is one of the most fun to use lenses in my camera bag. The small and compact body is made completely from a hard plastic, including the mount. This in turn allows the lens to be very light weight.

This post is dedicated to all of my friends and followers who have started up a hobby in DSLR photography and HDSLR video production. With the start of your new hobby, I advice you to look into the future purchases of a good piece of glass. Now that doesn't mean you have to drop two grand on a new lens, but just be advised of what the quality of the lens you are buying. In this instance, and at this point in time, I recommend all of my friends to consider the purchase of this Canon prime lens. The 50mm f/1.8 lens is not only something to consider because of its price, but instead its useful features.

So you are probably asking yourself, why would I need a 50mm lens when I have a lens that can surpass it at 55mm and even go as wide as 18mm? The answer is simple. One of the many benefits of a prime lens (and this one in particular) is the constant aperture reading. Unlike many variable focal length lenses, prime lenses have one and only one aperture reading. Take a look at your 18-55mm kit lens. You will notice the lens probably has a reading of f/3.5-5.6. This means the lens will only have a largest aperture reading of f/3.5 at the widest 18mm, and only a maximum of f/5.6 when zoomed in to the 55mm focal length.

This particular lens offers great performance in low light situations. In detail, this lens in particular has a large aperture of 1.8. In turn, that means the tiny iris inside of your lens will be open to it's full extent allowing more light into your camera's sensor. With that large aperture, you also gain the incredible depth of field we all know and love. Considering the lens has such a wide and large aperture, the focus is very sharp. In fact, if used properly, this lens can focus on the subject's nose, and already have the eyes out of focus. In my month or two of testing, I found this lens to be sharpest at f/2.8. Since many of you are using your DSLR cameras for video productions, you most likely will be filming indoors. The Canon 50mm f/1.8 will work to your advantage because it will be able to pick up every ounce of light available in your shooting environment.

A cool "artsy" effect you can add to your images is an out-of-focus light effect, called bokeh. With the Canon 50mm f/1.8, you have the key to the ultimate bokeh experience!

No matter what you plan to use your DSLR for, or no matter what brand you use, I advice each and every one of you to invest in a "nifty-fifty" lens. The quality you can achieve with these lenses are just truly magnificent. At an inexpensive price of a $100-$150, there should be no reason this lens is not in your camera bag.

Before I end this post, I would like to remind you all that this Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens is in fact a full-frame lens. If you use this lens on a crop body camera, such as the Canon EOS Rebel line (XS, XSi, T1i, T2i, etc) and Canon EOS line (Canon 40D, 50D, 60D, 7D, etc), you will be getting a focal length of about 80mm (50mm x 1.6 Crop Factor). In turn, that will cause the image to appear more zoomed in, than if you were to achieve 50mm on an EF-S lens. 

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to leave a comment below and I will respond as soon as possible.

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Sigma 10-20mm F/4-5.6 [Review]

A lot of people have been asking me to do a quick review on the Sigma 10-20mm lens. First off, the build quality. The way this lens is built is perfect. It seems very solid, stable and durable. It's built with a metal lens mount, which adds to the solid feel to the lens when you hold it while it's mounted to a camera body.

At 10mm, this is one of the widest lenses on the market. This allows you to get some very wide shots, getting a lot more in the frame than other lenses. Even when zoomed into 20mm this lens is still very wide. Although the lens only has an F stop or 4 at 10mm, it's still pretty fast, and when combined with a strong tripod, produces some sharp pictures!

Here is the lens itself. As you can see, it does come with a lens hood, which is standard for all Sigma lenses. This is something Canon & Nikon should start doing, as the lens hoods is a great feature that reduces lens flare and also adds a bit of contrast to your images.

With such a wide angle lens like this, you will notice some distortion in your images. Because of this, this lens may not be ideal for shooting portrait work. But when shooting landscapes, seascapes, and skylines, it does the job perfectly. If you have PTlens (An application used to correct lens distortion) you will be able to shoot some pretty spectacular work, and if you're brave enough and know what you're doing with correcting lens distortion, you might even be able to do some portrait work with this.

The minimum focal length of this lens is 0.24 Meters, which is great. You are able to get really close to a subject, but because of how wide this lens is, your photos will not appear as close as you really were. With most new Sigma lenses, this lens also hosts an AF feature, as well as a Manual focus feature. AF is pretty standard with most cameras / lenses on today's market. The AF speed is pretty fast, not as fast as some Canon L glass lenses, but for the price of this lens, it's good enough.

Overall this lens is awesome for shooting landscapes, and could even be used for portrait work with a little knowledge! Here are some examples I've shot in the past week with this lens. I'm loving it so far!

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