I finally got myself a new lens, the infamous cheap “Nifty Ffity“. I read good reviews on this, and it’s a “must have” if you believe what you read. It has some good features such as 1.8f aperture which lets in a whole load of light which is great, coming from a 3.5f aperture on my lens kit.
However the biggest problem is a one I feared about the lens, the 50mm is a bit of a problem. My camera is a 600D which is a cropped sensor, most entry level or mid level cameras are like this, which means that you don’t really get 50mm, it’s 1.6x (I believe) larger, so the focal range is about 80mm.
This is not so brilliant for indoor shooting such as a portrait for an Outfit Of The Day for example. It’s also not too good for photographing clothing, you can’t fit the whole item in, for example with T-shirts or jeans.
This is however a good lens for outdoors, or if you plan on shooting things on tables, taking photos of something smaller or if you want to focus on a large part of something. It’s definitely a lens bloggers should have, and at only around £80 it’s probably going to be the cheapest lens you can buy.
I have never owned any super expensive, premium lenses, so I cannot compare those to this in terms of quality. Lots of people complain about the build quality, but I think this is fairly decent and solid.
Yeah, it’s quite plastic, it’s really lightweight (not necessarily a bad thing) and if you read the reviews you’ll find most people saying the USM 50mm lens which is slightly faster at 1.4f is much better.
It probably is, but it’s also more than 3x the price! If you’re the casual or amateur photographer and don’t want to spend a fortune it’s definitely worth the money for starting out, and if you decide you want something more premium then you can go from there, and take all the experience you’ve got with this lens.
Since it has such a large aperture it allows you have a large amount of bokeh, aka background blur. Here are a couple of sample shots I have taken, and I’m pretty happy with the results.
Canon EF 50mm 1.8F II Sample Shots
Just some flowers 😀
Super Duper bokeh
About Michael
Michael Adams is the founder and editor of Michael 84, blogger from Newcastle, UK. Sharing men's fashion tips, style advice and lifestyle information for all guys.
