Having struggled with the Sigma 28-300 f3.5-6.3 for some outdoor horse photography – trying to achieve indoor horse photos good enough for the magazine was near impossible! Come October, the majority of Horse events are taken indoors and quite rightly so. However, if any of you have ever been to a local indoor horse show you will agree with me when I say that they are nothing more than a big shed with a few lights – not ideal for those wishing to take photos.

With this is mind, it was time to get a 50mm f1.8 II prime and finally be able to achieve some low light shots. At only £81 from Amazon, it wasn’t going to break the bank – plus its had such rave reviews it would be silly not to if it were the difference between a virtually black print and one that is correctly exposed.

Out of the box, the lens felt more like a toy than a piece of optics & I didn’t expect it to be that small! They do say however, great things come in small packages. There wasn’t much to play with at first, no distance window, no markings and a small focus ring – it did keep me occupied for a good hour though.

The autofocus is driven by a micro motor and has been said to be fine only in good light with subjects that are not moving. I have to disagree – running in AI Servo mode at the weekend at f1.8 and a shutter speed of 1/500 I found the AF speed to be just fine – not as quick as that of an L series USM but good enough to achieve results. With this lens not being USM is noisier than most other Canon lenses but as this isn’t a wildlife lens I shouldn’t think that would bother two many people. I suppose a positive aspect of the sound is that you know when it is working – and when focus is locked.

Where this lens scores highly is its 1.8 f-stop – very fast. Images are definitely soft at this aperture but acceptable in a pinch. What I had to bear in mind is that I may not have got the shot at all if I didn’t have the f1.8 setting so a bit of softness is the trade-off. Noticeable improvement in sharpness is seen at f2.2 and it just gets better from there on in. Stopped down to around f4 – f11 the lens displays stunning levels of clarity and sharpness for the price. It also focuses down to 45 cm.

So there you have it, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens delivers very sharp images as inexpensively as Canon lenses get.

70% JPEG Web Quality | Shot at 1/500 at f1.8 ISO 1600