Customer Ratings & Reviews

This has to be one of the best Lenses I've purchased. It's AMAZING in lowlight. It takes flawless portraits, and when shooying video, the USM monitor keeps the focus extremely silent. So no vibrations. Overall flawless lens.

I absolutely love this lens. With the low aperture you get that really nice background blur for lovely portrait shots. I highly recommend this as a portrait lens.

Another fine Canon product. It was hard getting familiar with the focal length at first. My old Canon 20D has an EF-S 18-55, which allowed me to get closer. Now I am getting perfect pictures!

The lense is wonder, it is very simple and easy to use, the lense provides beautiful video/photos. The only con, it makes a lot of noise when the lense auto focuses. I know most people believes that if you have a camera that allow you to set it to 50mm, you don't need this lense. The lense has been a wonderful addition.

I purchased this to replace my old 1.8f and it's been very good to me so far. I probably should've gotten this sooner!

I purchased this lens for it's low light capabilities. It has been a great compliment to my other zoom lenses and I really like the quality and sharpness.

This lens is amazing and fell in love with in instantly. Highly recommend it, and it is great for capturing photos with bokeh.

Amazing lens to have in your arsenal! Nifty fifty!!

Love my new lens. It’s a big upgrade from my last one. The only thing that would make it better is the ability to zoom, but that’s a whole other lens.

Tack sharp images! Used mostly for family portraits, newborn, and maternity photos.

Previously I’ve only shot with film so I bought this as my first lense to use and it does an amazing job. Would definitely recommend for anyone getting into photography

I bought this because I was looking for very blurred backgrounds for more depth photos and I got exactly that. Very happy with my purchase

I can't say enough good things about this lens. The price is fairly inexpensive for the quality of the image you receive. The bokeh is amazing. I'm sure there are better portrait lenses on the market for Canon, but you can't beat the quality you get from this lens for a mere +/- $400. The large aperture creates an extremely shallow depth of field and allows for easy handheld night shots. My only complaint with this lens would be the focus itself. With the aperture wide open it can be very difficult to get the focus exactly where you want it.

I have been shooting with this lens for a little over a year now. I love the metal mount, solid construction, and near silent AF. The bokeh, as someone else noted is exceptional. The biggest drawback from the lens is when you are shooting down in the F/1.4-2.8 range. The off-center sharpness drops off dramatically down in the range. If you are unaccustomed to it, you can get overly "creamy" or dream-like pictures that may be unsatisfactory. The upside is, at least you can get a clean shot in low-lighting at 1.4. The lens is razor sharp in the F/5.6-7.8 range, and truly excels in this area. At this aperture, the lens rivals its L series big brother (sort of...). Bottom line: Buy the lens, be considerate of sharpness loss in low aperture settings.

This lens is a great investment, especially for beginners. I began my journey with photography using a Canon T3i and the kit lens that came with it. I wasn't satisfied with the low light capabilities of both the lens and the camera itself. With this lens you can stop down to 1.4 which is more than enough for most situations and perfect for portraiture. This is the first full frame lens I've purchased - and love it! *******************************Crop Users***************************** For full frame cameras you will get the field of view as specified, however for a crop sensor camera like the Canon Rebel T3i, the view would be similar to the view of an 85mm on a full frame body (1.7x the focal length). Just something to keep in mind when purchasing this lens - for all the beginners out there. If you want the same field of view on a crop sensor look for a wider lens like a 30mm (30 * 1.7 ≈ 50). Another lens I'd recommend for crop sensor cameras is the Sigma Art 18-35mm f 1.8 lens, which is absolutely phenomenal. ************************************************************************ Anyways, this lens practically lives on my 5D Mark IV and is absolutely versatile for portraits,street photography, architecture, and event photography. I have noticed some chromatic aberration in some backlit scenarios, but overall the sharpness and quality is great! For video, the AF is a bit noisy and gets picked up with the built in microphone, so if you are purchasing this lens for video, just keep this in mind and invest in sound recording equipment (off camera). PROS Build is a little bit of plastic and metal which helps it stay lightweight. Great Focal Length for various categories of photography Great for Low Light! (It's a fast lens - duh!) Bokeh is nice! CONS Photography: Occasional Chromatic Aberration in Backlit Scenarios Videography: AF Motors are a bit noisy

This is my new favorite lens. It performs excellent in low light. I shoot completely natural light with this lens. No flash, Every image is clear, crisp and clean. I would expect it's best to have a nicer end camera that can handle the high ISO if you plan to shoot completely with natural light. I shoot Manual which also pulls the best out of this lens. For the money, it's performance is top notch.

easy to use lens, fast lens, quick focus, sharp picture, awesome for the price you get.

I got this lens for the extra low light for videos and I've got to say that it's actually not that bad. I do have in camera stabilization to make shots more smooth. It's being used on a full frame 6d mk2 . For photos I don't use f1.4, but when I did use it for a glass margarita shot the bokeh was amazing. If you want some serious bokeh for a great price this is the lens. I mostly use this lens for video. If you don't have a stabilizer or built in stabilization you'll need to improvise. The shots in video really do stand out compared to a kit lens. If you're wondering if the 1.4 is worth the price. Trust me it's worth it you won't regret it.

As a long-time user of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, I was always envious of photographers that owned the f/1.4 version. And then I got one. I would never go so far as to say that this lens is bad in any way... it is, in fact, quite good. But its image quality isn't quite as high as I expected it to be, and it doesn't have anywhere near the bang-for-the-buck of the f/1.8 version. Image quality is only marginally better than the f/1.8, and while it uses a USM motor (not ring-type) to focus, it really doesn't focus that much faster and isn't terribly quiet while doing so. Build quality is better on the f/1.4, but only marginally so. It has a metal instead of plastic mount, but the body of the lens is still plastic. Being able to manually focus at any time is nice, but not something I would consider essential. Having a USM focusing system instead of the micro motor in the f/1.8 does give a feeling of higher quality, if focusing manually is your thing. So I actually have a really hard time recommending this lens to someone who already has nifty fifty. It's only marginally better, yet costs between three and four times as much. Image quality at f/1.4 is a little soft across the entire frame, but it is noticeably worse in the corners. It doesn't really sharpen up fully until f/2.8, but we don't buy this lens to shoot it at f/2.8 -- we buy it so we can shoot in really low light or to get maximum bokeh at f/1.4. If you don't mind some softness, f/1.4 does meet those requirements, but don't expect pictures to be tack sharp when doing so. For photographers looking at lens options, I'd have to recommend getting the 50mm f/1.8, and then the 85mm f/1.8 instead of the 50mm f/1.4. You'd be getting two great lenses for only a little bit more than you'd spend on just this one. The 85mm f/1.8 lens is significantly better than this one in nearly every way, and it is roughly the same price. And 85mm is much better for portrait work (especially on a full-frame body), if that is your intent. If you're looking for a lens for portrait work, just skip right over both 50mm options and go right to something at 85mm or longer. 50mm is a poor choice for portraits. Bottom line, if you're shooting portraits, just get the 85mm instead. For anyone else, unless you need full time manual focus, you've got money to burn, or you're really set on getting the f/1.4 for its slightly better build quality, I'd recommend getting the 50mm f/1.8 instead. It's 90% of what this lens is at roughly a third the price. Then invest what you would have spent on this one into the 85mm f/1.8. But as far as the difference between the f/1.8 lens and this lens, there really isn't that much of a difference. This lens is very good, but so is the f/1.8.

I already had the Canon nifty fifty (50mm f/1.8) prime lens and it still works great. But the build quality leaves a lot to be desired and i wanted this better quality Canon 50mm f/1.4. Besides being a faster aperture (should be a tad better in low light) the build quality is much better and it has good IQ. I debated on getting the "Newer" 50mm f/1.8 STM upgrade. My thoughts were that...that upgrade may be a better buy since the price is the same as the old one. But looking at all the comparisons in specs, this lens (on paper) should have better IQ and build, and it seems to. I like the auto focus, quiet and fast. The bokeh and sharpness is great for a mid level lens. Not the build quality and IQ of the Canon 50mm f/1.2 L, but it's about a 5th the price, and much easier to use for a non Pro. One of the reasons I wanted this upgrade is the metal lens mount it has. My nifty fifty has no metal mount, all cheap plastic. I've read reviews where it may stick to your camera and be hard to get off. The nifty fifty has decent IQ but I didn't think it would hold up over time, or heavy use. But I will keep it as a backup since it so compact and doesn't take up much room.. If one is buying a 50mm prime lens for the 1st time and are looking for a good low cost lens, I'd recommend the "New" Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM upgrade. If one wants a better quality 50mm prime lens with better IQ, and willing to pay a little more, I highly recommend this Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens.