We live in a somewhat ironic day. Many of the optical defects of past years have been resolved, and lenses are no longer prone to flare or odd optical quirks like bokeh that “swirls” around the periphery of the image. Most modern lenses have rich contrast and are sharp wide open. Modern DSLR sensors have amazing high ISO performance, so the days of heavy grain/noise are behind us. So what do we do? We purchase a cool piece of software like Alien Skin Exposure to electronically emulate all of those defects that our gear no longer has. Light leaks, grain, reduced contrast and faded colors. Weird!
This started as a pristine image until I used Alien Skin Exposure to add all the “defects”.
And yet those looks are so magical!
Our advantage today is that we can selectively apply those looks when and where we want them, and can minimize the downsides by masking off areas we don’t want affected.
Few modern photographers are interested in really returning to the days of film, but it is a lot of those film stocks and their unique qualities that have inspired a good number of the presets in Exposure. But this article focuses on another aspect of Exposure’s “analog soul”, and that is the influence of vintage glass.
I have some photographer friends that just love film. They simply get more stubborn as their opportunities to get film dwindle and development shops drop like flies. I must confess that film has no attraction to me; I’m delighted to have full frame bodies where I can occasionally shoot ISO 25,600 and still get acceptable results! But vintage/analog glass is another matter. I fell in love with a number of vintage lenses that I pull out and use regularly despite a kit full (12, I believe!) of high end modern lenses.
Why?
I’m a professional lens reviewer. I have a lot of lenses flow through my hands (13 so far this year) and so I get a little spoiled and jaded by getting to use the best all the time. If I could offer up one criticism of many modern lenses, it is that they are often a bit “clinical”. They lack personality. In the process of engineering out all of the defects lenses sometimes lose their souls.
This just isn’t the case with vintage glass. For example, right now I have an SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 sitting on my workbench with a black light shining down into it. Why would I do such a crazy thing? Because a lot of these 40+ year 50mm Takumars have elements that can yellow a bit over time due to…wait for it…a slightly radioactive Thorium element that is part of the optical formula. I kid you not! Black light (UV) actually helps to clear the yellowing from the elements and improves light transmission. It’s a bit of a conundrum, though, as the yellowing produces really unique, warm colors that set the end result apart from other lenses. A lot of shots look wonderful right out of camera in a way that more color neutral lenses do not. I’m hoping that I don’t regret eliminating that character. I’ll probably end up adding a warming filter back into a lot of the images through Exposure! Here are few right out of camera from the SMC Takumar (while it was still yellow!)
Likewise one of my all-time favorite vintage lenses – a Soviet era Helios 44-2 (58mm f/2 lens). I got my copy shipped from Russia for less than $30, but pretty much every image I’ve ever shared from it has been a critical success and a good number of them have been commercial successes. It just has a very unique rendering due to its unique optical imperfections. It is extremely flare prone, but in a wonderfully artistic way.
You know that cool swirling bokeh effect in the Bokeh section of Exposure? That is actually the way this lens renders bokeh at certain distances. This bokeh is straight out of camera (or the lens, rather!):
You can check out this article that compares a modern 50mm f/1.4 prime (Rokinon) against a rogue’s gallery of vintage 50mm primes. The article has both mini reviews and art galleries from each vintage lens. I’m willing to bet you’ll find a lot of images there that you just love the look of!
There are a ton of great vintage 135mm lenses that are fabulous portrait lenses. They tend to be very compact and easy to bring along, too. I’ve got 28mm and 35mm SMC Takumar primes that still produce amazingly unique images and get into my portrait rotation and a vintage Zeiss prime that is my go-to video lens for my YouTube videos.
Want to set your work apart from every other guy with a DSLR? Look no further than some vintage glass.
OK, so there are downsides. None of these lenses have mounts native to your modern DSLR, but fortunately very cheap adapters can be had off Ebay for often no more than $10. Spend a couple of bucks more and get one with a focus confirm chip on it. Yes, they will be both manual focus and you will have to control the aperture through an aperture ring on the lens, but the lenses meter fine and produce some great pictures. The good news is that there are some beautifully made and optically unique and wonderful lenses out there for not much money. The popularity of some models has driven up their price on Ebay, but you might lucky at pawn shops or estate sales, too. Just beware: using vintage glass can get a little addictive.
And if you can’t handle the hassle, fortunately Exposure is very easy to use. Just go ahead and add some imperfections to your otherwise perfect modern images…weird! P.S. If you use my name “dustinabbott” as a coupon code it will give you 10% off everything in the Alien Skin store. Enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Canon has made a habit in recent of years of not building the lenses that we all guess they are going to build while often announcing and then swiftly releasing lenses that few people expected. After Canon refreshed a number of its smaller, non-L series primes (24mm, 28mm, and 35mm) with critically acclaimed (and image stabilized) new designs, the common expectation was that Canon would next address its aging yet popular EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. So what did Canon do? The opposite of expectations, of course, and instead released a refreshed version of its “plastic fantastic” aka “nifty-fifty” aka EF 50mm f/1.8 II. That new lens is the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM, and it is a significant upgrade in a number of ways over its older predecessor. Here is a summary of those updates from a preview article I wrote (we will elaborate further on many of these):
Redesign of the aperture iris. It is now 7 rounded blades as compared to the 5 straighter blades before. The previous design would cause bokeh highlights to be a bit ugly (I often use the term “cartoonish” if the lens was stopped down much. Expect the new lens to have better bokeh when stopped down and I wouldn’t be surprised if highlights stay circular until at least f/5.6 or so. This wasn’t the case even at f/2.8 with the older design.
Shorter minimum focus and maximum magnification. The older lens had a 1.5 foot minimum focus distance and thus a maximum magnification of .15x. This is pretty much the standard for 50mm lenses, but is definitely an Achilles’s heel for them. That isn’t a very impressive magnification figure. Canon has addressed that here, however, with a new minimum focus of just 1.1 feet and a maximum magnification of .21x. This is a much more useful figure and will allow for even more diffused backgrounds and more creativity when shooting “macro” type shots. This is a big deal to me, personally, as I really enjoy using a 50mm lens in this fashion.
Better build quality, including a metal mount. The redesign of the lens includes a more robust build quality (no more “plastic fantastic”) around a metal lens mount (the MK II of the lens had only a plastic mount). The original version of this lens has long been prized for its more robust build quality, and this new lens should prove a modernized version of that.
Better focus ring. The 50mm f/1.8 II might as well as not had a focus ring at all. It was terrible. Tiny, scratchy, and not at all fun to manually focus. The new focus ring will be a bit wider and definitely smoother, and STM does allow for full time manual override (unlike previous versions of this lens). Just know that STM is “focus by wire”, meaning that it is an electronic connection and not a physical one, meaning that the camera must be on for manual focus and that there can be a bit of a lag between your input on the focus ring and the actually movement of the elements. Not my favorite system, but here it will be an improvement over what was there before.
Better coatings. While there isn’t a big change to the optical formula, there has been some “tweaking” along with modern, improved coatings to help the optical performance. This from Canon’s press release, “Composed of six elements in five groups, the new Canon EF 50mm f/1.8mm STM lens features an optimized lens placement and Super Spectra Coating (SSC), translating into less ghosting and flaring than the previous model, while at the same time helping to enhance light transmission and optimize color reproduction accuracy.”
Even more compact size. The “nifty-fifty” was never a very big lens, and while the new lens isn’t the pancake lens that some had hoped for, it is a truly compact lens. The previous lens was about 41mm long while the new lens is about 38mm. The new lens weighs about 30grams more, but that is still only 159 grams, and that is a great news as it reflects the more robust build quality of the new lens. By comparison, the EF 40mm f/2.8 pancake weighs 130g and is 23mm long.
Exact same price. Perhaps most shocking is the fact that all of these improvements come at zero cost penalty to potential buyers. The new lens can be ordered from B&H for just $125, which is an amazing price for what will be a very competent little lens. It’s hard to miss at this kind of price point.
So after spending some quality time with the new nifty fifty, let’s jump in and discover the reality of the new lens. The new 50STM is a very nice lens for its extremely low price point. It feels like a real lens rather than the toy-like quality of the “plastic fantastic”. I let my wife and children handle the old 50mm f/1.8 II, and they were shocked at cheap and “plasticky” it felt in comparison to the usual volume of lenses flowing across my desk. The 50mm STM is small and light, of course, but it feels like a real lens. It’s not a Zeiss, of course (or even a Takumar), but it has a much more reassuring “denseness” compared to its predecessor. When compared with the 40mm f/2.8 STM, the 40mm feels a bit more dense. It weighs less (130g vs. 159g) but is also only 60% as long (23mm vs. 38mm), so overall it is about 25% more dense.
The new 50STM has a finish that is more of a matte look than any Canon lens I’ve reviewed before. The look works, though, and while the design is simple (STM lenses eschew focus distance windows and any kind of hyperfocal markings) it is clean and works nicely. The focus ring is still on the smallish side, but is wider than the focus ring on either the older 50mm f/1.8 or that on the 40mm STM.
One negative carried over here from the previous generation is that the lens is NOT internally focusing. The internal lens housing does extend during focus. It is most pronounced at minimum focus and is fully retracted at infinity focus. Most annoying is the fact the lens housing does not retract when the camera is powered down, and the nature of STM technology means that you cannot manually retract it when the camera is powered off. That exposes a vulnerability, as it might be possible to damage the lens by something hitting that front barrel when it is extended. It makes the purchase of a lens hood an important consideration. The lens hood would prevent that happening in most all situations. Yes, nearly $27 for a piece of plastic is a bit ridiculous, but considering the bargain price of the lens, just consider it part of the investment.
Some photographers were hoping that this lens would be a “pancake” like the 40mm f/2.8 STM. While it isn’t really a pancake, for all practical purposes it is almost as good. It should easily slip into a jacket pocket and be very easy to bring along, and will add next to no discernible weight to most photographer’s bag. I should also note that the compact size of the lens and its use of STM makes it a very natural lens to use with the EOS M line of camera bodies via the EF adapter. It balances nicely there and focuses fairly close to native EOS M lenses in terms of speed. This lens might even replace the 40mm f/2.8 STM as my most used EF lens on the EOS M.
The reality is that Canon has given us far more lens and charged us no more for it, making this lens officially one of the best bargains (if not the best) in DSLR photography. Canon’s margin on this lens is probably initially going to be fairly small (despite recycling a fair portion of the optical formula), but I have a feeling that they will make up for it in volume. This lens is cheap enough that many photographers will buy it even if they don’t intend to use it that often. I’ll probably do it myself, and that’s why Canon was very smart to keep this lens priced so aggressively. It also deflects the attack from Chinese maker Yongnuo with their “clone” of the 50mm f/1.8.
Autofocus
The key component of this upgrade is found in the name: STM. STM standings for “Stepping Motor”, and it is a newer focus motor technology that began with the EF 40mm STM lens. While speed is always a factor with autofocus motors, STM technology is more about the way focus is achieved. Specifically, “stepping” technology is about smoothness in focus, and smooth transitions from one focus point to another. Its major application is in video capture when AF Servo focus can be used to achieve smooth video focus without hunting. A lens with STM used with, say, a Canon 70D like mine will even do smooth, natural “focus pulls” where extreme focus changes are made from a foreground to a background subject. STM motors also tend to be quieter, particularly when compared to the older micro-motors used in many of Canon’s lower end (non USM) lenses. Take a look at the difference in the focus quality and sound during AF Servo video capture on a Canon EOS 70D body.
This 50mm lens is only the third full frame compatible lens that Canon has released with STM technology, and it makes far more sense than the last one that I reviewed (the 24-105mm STM). The use of STM makes perfect sense in Canon’s lower end and crop-sensor specific lenses (EF-S), as most of the recent Canon crop sensor bodies can leverage that technology (the Canon 70D and 7DMKII most effectively because of the Dual Pixel AF technology) and the fact that STM is an improvement upon the old micro-motor technology. Its use in full frame lenses is a little more puzzling, however, as to this point no Canon full frame body employs Dual Pixel AF or supports AF Servo video capture. I viewed the 24-105mm STM as more of a lens designed for future bodies, because its focal length is simply not a natural one for crop sensor bodies (the 18-135 STM makes more sense if you are shooting crop). I’m not as concerned here, because the low purchase price of the “nifty-fifty” means that a lot of crop-sensor shooters are likely to use it in addition to full frame shooters. The 50mm focal length is equally loved by full frame and crop sensor users, where the 50mm focal length becomes an effective 80mm (full frame equivalent). This puts it into a real sweet spot for portrait work as well as general purpose.
Full frame shooters get the advantage of a better/quieter/faster focusing lens even if their camera body can’t leverage the AF Servo video focus function. Some crop sensor shooters with the right body will get the full functionality.
The older 50mm f/1.8 II lens was one of the most notorious examples of the downsides of micro-motor focus. Its AF was loud, buzzy, and had a scratchy sound like it was working through a bit of grit every time. Micro-motors do not support full time manual override, so you would have to select manual focus on the side of the lens before attempting to manually focus with the tiny manual focus ring that seemed to be barely attached to the very front of the barrel. Not great. It felt much like its price – cheap.
The STM version is a big step up. The focus motor is noticeably quieter (though not silent nor as quiet as other STM lenses that I’ve used), and it is much smoother. Faster? Not noticeably, but definitely smoother. Check out this video for a look at the build, motor, and focus sound.
Unsurprisingly the focus shines the brightest when used in a way that the technology was designed for. I added a 70D to my kit for just this kind of evaluation, and in video AF Servo mode the lens smoothly transitions from one focus point to another. It also focuses very quickly when utilizing the Dual Pixel AF in Live View mode. On my 6D body the focus is also nice and accurate, although the speed is unimpressive when compared to a variety of modern lenses using either USM (Canon), USD (Tamron), or HSM (Sigma) ultrasonic/hypersonic motors.
I should note that the copy of the lens that I reviewed did require significant AFMA adjustment (focus tuning) on the bodies that I used it on (save the EOS M, obviously). This included two Canon 6D bodies and 1 Canon 70D body. On all bodies the AFMA was at least -11. That is one of the more extreme adjustments that I have had to make on a modern lens, but on a positive note the result was consistent across multiple bodies and was repeatable in multiple tests.
If you have a body that does not support AFMA adjustment and find that your copy of the lens is not focusing consistently (accurately), you might consider sending the combination (body + lens) to Canon for calibration. It might cost you a bit of money but will save you a lot of heartache.
By comparison, the older 50II needed less extreme adjustment but with less consistent results. I got a number of errors even trying to run the program, so I do think that overall focus accuracy has been improved.
Probably the biggest challenge for this type of lens is going to be in portrait use. We portrait photographers tend to like sharp, accurately focuses results. I typically focus on eyes, and I demand the focus there to be accurate. You will probably find that this type of shooting (typically at wide apertures like f/2.8 or larger) will expose focus inconsistencies more than general shooting. I was initially disappointed with the focus accuracy of the copy on my primary camera body that I was using after a series of portraits (thanks to my lovely wife for jumping in to model for me).
I knew the lens was capable of better results, so I redid the AFMA adjustments in better lit conditions (always important when using an automated AFMA program like Reikan FoCal). It settled in a result of -10 on that particular body compared to a previous figure of -14. This result solved my problem, and the next series of portraits (all at f/2) at various distances proved much more accurate.
This allayed my concerns over focus accuracy. Word to the wise: do the microadjustment (AFMA) and then field test your results before using any lens for important work. The second series proved that focus accuracy was dialed in at a variety of focus distances. I would now be far more confident using the lens for professional/important work.
One anecdotal observation: On a recent outing I added an older Hoya circular polarizer from my vintage kit (a lot of legacy lenses used a 49mm standard filter). The circular polarizer made a noticeable difference in a couple of ways.
It definitely improved the images (used correctly a polarizer usually does!), but I also noticed that the lens hunted more, particularly at close distances. It was most noticeable with Live View shooting on the Canon 6D, but I noticed it a bit even with traditional AF through the viewfinder. I don’t recall any lens being quite so affected by the addition of a circular polarizer before. The lens seems to focus fine in lower light conditions as a bare lens, so it may have been a fluke. It could also be the nature of the circular polarizer in some way; I’ve never used it on a modern AF lens before (I’ve never had a 49mm front filter thread on an AF lens!!
In summation, the lens focus accuracy is good on all four of my camera bodies (including the EOS M), although the lens is far from the fastest focusing that I’ve ever used. It may be slightly (if at all) faster than the older 50mm f/1.8, but the major upgrade here is the manner of focus (and its accuracy) than the overall speed.
This lens has not changed my mind about manual focus or MF override in an STM lens. The camera has to be awake and prepared to accept input from the lens before it will do anything at all, and even then, there is a lag when making manual adjustments because the manual input is sent to the focus motor that actually makes the adjustment. This is sometimes called “focus by wire”, so true manual focus is nonexistent. Forget pre-focusing. It is always the focus motor that drives adjustment, not a physical coupling to the lens elements like other type focus motors. This is pretty hard to accept for a guy who loves Zeiss lenses (frankly, I hate manually focusing this lens), but, in this case, it is unquestionable that the overall focus and even the focus ring are an upgrade over the previous version of the lens. By the way, no STM lens to date has included a distance window or hyperfocal marking, so you know that manual focus is definitely not a priority in these applications.
Image Quality
Canon has not made a lot of claims of improved optical performance from the lens, even coming out and saying that it uses the same optical formula as the previous lens. It seems like they are being modest, however, as I do perceive a very slight bump in resolution (particularly towards the center) along with noticeably better contrast. What Canon does claim is that the optical formula has “optimized lens placement”, and that has produced a better image overall. It is very modest jump, but when one considers that we are getting a vastly improved lens in other ways for the same money, it still feels pretty good. Better contrast helps to create the impression of slightly better resolution. In some situations the image quality looks identical, while in others I do see a bit of an improvement from the new lens. Here are some crops that show direct comparisons. I notice a considerable difference in the center on a crop sensor in this comparison:
I see less difference in the center on this full frame comparison, but there is a slight improvement across the frame, mostly in the perception of less “haze” due to reduced contrast and resolution.
Here is an outdoor series comparing the 50mm STM, 50mmII, 40mm STM, and SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4. Here is a series of shots + center crops from the 50STM (this series will also give you an idea of overall look of images from the lens at apertures including: f/1.8, f/2, f/2.8, and f/4)
Finally, for the fun of it (and because I know that some of you are interested), here is what the vintage SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 does in the same setting: (this series replaces f/1.8 with f/1.4):
You will note the nicest bokeh here is from the older SMC (Super Multi-Coated) Takumar. That isn’t just due to the wider aperture (f/1.4 vs. f/1.8); the bokeh has less of a hard edge (as we will see in our aperture comparison), and, as a result, the overall look of the bokeh region is softer. Remember that in its day the SMC Tak 50mm f/1.4 was a premium lens. It is actually sharper in the center at f/2 when compared with the new STM lens:
The sharpness advantage reverses when you move out into the corner, with the 50STM the winner there. This next series does a similar comparison as the previous series, but now the subject has been moved into the extreme upper right corner. I chose this at random, but haven’t noticed a centering issue with any of our competitors. First, the 50STM at f/1.8, f/2, f/2.8, and f/4). In this series I will only show the full image wide open to show placement of the subject, and then the crops at each aperture.
This series should also help you see how vignetting clears up as the lenses are stepped down. All of the 50mm lenses vignette fairly heavily with the 40mm lagging only slightly behind. The SMC Takumar surprisingly exhibits a little less vignette despite being an f/1.4 lens with a tiny 49mm front element.
The good news is that the image quality was already pretty good with the older lens; it was the other areas like the build, aperture, and focus motor that were higher priority needs, and Canon has addressed those.
Aperture Iris Improvement
Probably the best way to examine the update to the aperture iris is by viewing this video:
The video highlights a clear advantage for the new lens. The older version of the lens had 5 straight aperture blades that quickly began to produce a pentagonal shape in bokeh highlights. My feeling is that even by f/2.8 this look was somewhat cartoonish (not a fan of “creative apertures). The new lens has a vastly improved (modernized) aperture iris with 7 curved aperture blades. As a result the aperture stays quite round through about f/5.6, and only then does the shape of the blades become apparent. This is a huge improvement and addresses one of the fundamental flaws of the earlier lens. You can also check out this aperture comparison series. First, from the new STM lens:
Wide open the bokeh looks nearly identical to the older lens, which supports what Canon has said regarding a largely recycled optical formula.
By f/2.8 the difference in the bokeh quality from the old lens to the two is extremely dramatic. The roundness of the bokeh highlights on the STM lens is actually improved over the wide open look.
The STM lens keeps largely round bokeh highlights through f/5.6, and while you can see the shape of the aperture blades then, the look is still pleasing.
The Takumar lens has more blades (8), but they aren’t as rounded. It shows a octagonal shape even by f/2, though that shape is preferable to the pentagon shape of the older 50mm II.
The Takumar bokeh has less of a hard edge towards the outer edges, resulting in softer looking bokeh in field use.
The overall quality of the bokeh character in the new STM is unchanged, though there is a vast improvement to the shape of bokeh highlights when the lens is stopped down. Overall bokeh quality is decent but unexceptional, with harder edges and less creamy softness of the better lenses. Still, in field use the bokeh is far from displeasing in most settings:
Here is a gallery of other bokeh images at differing focus distances:
Chromatic aberrations are also noticeably more controlled. I am seeing very little chromatic aberrations in field use, and that is a big step up. The reduction of CA (probably through improved coatings) helps improve the bokeh quality, as bokeh highlights are frequent places where green or purple fringing show up. I have seen a bit of that at 100% magnification, but for the most part I’ve seen very little chromatic aberrations at all.
It is clear the optical formula has at the least been optimized, particularly when considers that they also managed to reduce the minimum focus distance from 1.5 ft to 1.1 ft while improving the maximum magnification from .15x to .21x. Something has changed! If this the same optical formula (and direct comparison tells me it probably is), the improved coatings and optimization of element placement has produced the ability to take images that at least appear to have higher resolution.
Speaking of that closer focus distance: my findings are a mixed bag. Then lens does focus closer, but image quality at wide apertures near minimum focus doesn’t seem quite as good as less extreme distances. I’ve seen stronger performances near minimum focus than what this lens gives (like, for example, from the 40mm f/2.8). Still, I don’t think the lens is any worse than the previous version at minimum focus, and in my aperture comparison I noted a slightly better result for the newer lens.
Stopping down the lens a bit helps close focus sharpness, and with the addition of extension tubes the lens will open up a world of macro photography (though with the limitations that extension tubes bring). That improved magnification figure is certainly another plus.
Flare resistance is also dramatically improved due to Canon’s new coatings on the lens. It will produce a few ghosting artifacts when the sun is in the frame, but the veiling is nearly gone and those artifacts are far less disruptive. It is subtle improvements like this that really make the lens a much better value.
Distortion was already very low for field use, and that is unchanged here. In field use the tiny amount of barrel distortion should be imperceptible.
Image quality overall is quite good for the money. I’ve recently reviewed the Canon 50mm f/1.2L and the Zeiss Otus 1.4/55mm, so the fact that I’m not completely disappointed is a compliment in and of itself. I’m impressed with what I’m seeing from this little lens overall. Do understand that my evaluation is relative to the price point; it isn’t about to challenge the Otus or the Sigma ART. There is still some haze at apertures wider than f/2.8 when you examine images at 100%, and color fidelity isn’t likely to threaten Zeiss anytime soon, but the images I’ve gotten from this lens are punching well above its bargain basement price. It is providing very strong optical performance for the price, and the fact that image quality is quite good wide open from the lens helps eliminate some of the sting of not having an f/1.4 aperture. Stopping the lens down helps eliminate the haze and also extends the sharpness into the corners. At f/2.8 and beyond the image quality is impressive by any standard. This is great news for those of you that are looking to use the lens for general purpose work. I tend to use primes like this in specific ways (and usually at wide apertures), but I recognize that everyone has different needs.
Though modest, that little bit of optical improvement is going to be enough to make a lot of photographers happy (see a number of other photos at the Image Gallery), but it also still leaves plenty of room for Canon to do something very impressive with their update to the 50mm f/1.4. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that lens get a bit larger (something like the awesome 35mm f/2 IS) and a little more expensive (ditto). Canon has left themselves with a little wiggle room and reasonably low development costs on this lens due to leveraging the existing optical formula and other existing technologies (STM motor).
The Holy Grail…and Conclusions
The quest for the “Holy Grail” of 50mm lenses continues. I’ve yet to use one that really checks all the boxes for me. I am still looking for a 50mm lens with the attributes and size factor of the 35mm f/2 IS. Namely, 1) Fast, accurate USM AF, 2) Excellent wide open sharpness, 3) A moderate size 4) Quality drawing and bokeh. IS (image stabilization) would be the icing on the cake. I’ve reviewed and used more than 17 50mm options, both modern and legacy, and none of them have quite hit the sweet spot for me. My hope is that Canon’s replacement for 50mm f/1.4 will be the lens I’ve been looking for. By the way, if you shoot a crop sensor camera and want an upgrade over the 50mm STM, get the 35mm f/2 IS. It becomes the best general purpose 50mm lens (equivalent) that I could recommend.
But I’m spoiled by owning a large kit of excellent lenses and getting to constantly use the newest and the best as a lens reviewer. The target audience for this lens isn’t me; it is the millions of users who have a limited budget but want a competent wide aperture prime lens…and the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM is exactly that. It is hard to be critical when Canon has updated a number of key areas of this lens while leaving the price at a bargain basement level (only $125 in the United States). The “nifty fifty” was already one of the best values in photography; the new lens raises the value even higher. It is pretty much better in every area while remaining the exact same price. Kudos to Canon for giving us so much for so little!
Pros:
Amazing value for the money
Improved build quality, including a metal bayonet mount.
Vastly improved aperture iris (modern design)
Autofocus quality and accuracy through STM
Slightly improved optical performance in key areas
Improved flare resistance, chromatic aberration control, and contrast
Improved minimum focus distance and maximum magnification
Cons:
STM performance here slightly below the standard of other lenses
Optical improvement marginal
Manual focus with STM
Bokeh quality isn’t exceptional
Should I Upgrade to the 50mm STM?
Expect the used market to become pretty flooded with the MKII version of the lens as, for a lot of people, the answer will be yes. If you are happy with what you have already, then know that optically there isn’t a big change. If you have issues with the aperture shape or want to shoot video and need quieter, smoother focus, then the answer is a big yes. If you’ve not yet purchased and want a cheap prime for portrait work or general purpose shooting, then this is an easy choice. It’s not that it is exceptional at anything, but the 50mm STM is good enough at everything that most users will be satisfied. If you don’t mind manual focus, consider picking up an SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 off the used market. The 40mm f/2.8 pancake remains a solid alternative as well.
Review Notes: I want to thank B&H Photo for providing me with this retail sample for review purposes. Please consider purchasing through these links; its costs you nothing, but provides a little income to me that helps me keep these reviews coming and this site maintained.
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
People have been using 50mm “normal” lenses for most of the past century, and no focal length has been more popular. 50mm lenses are called “normal” because they roughly approximate the typical human field of view. That makes the focal length very popular because people find it very easy to visualize and compose with a 50mm lens. It is often the first prime lens (and many times only prime) that people own. Due to decades of engineering and a relatively simple design, 50mm lenses are often quite inexpensive, with Canon’s own EF 50mm f/1.8 only costing about $125. There are some newer designs that have pushed the envelope in terms of optics, size, and price (Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 and Sigma ART 50mm f/1.4). The newest 50mm to hit the market is from Korean manufacturer Samyang/Rokinon. The Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 AS IF UMC lens has a lot of “old school” sensibilities. It is manual focus only, has a genuine aperture ring, and absolutely no electronics (in all mounts save Nikon F). But it is also thoroughly grounded in the present, with a fairly large build, weight, and front element. It also has some killer optics. Because it is new, it will cost a bit more than the old fellows, but it is cheap enough for people consider it as an alternative to vintage glass. You can read my full review of that lens here.
But since it has some throwback sensibilities I thought throw it into the ring with some of my vintage favorites for a 50mm Shootout. These are some of my favorite vintage lenses, including:
SMC (Super-Multi-Coated) Takumar 50mm f/1.4 (M42)
SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 (M42)
Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 (M42)
Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm (M42)
Using vintage lenses comes with a few quirks that you should be aware of. For example, the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 and the Helios 44-2 will hang on the mirror of the camera (a full frame Canon EOS 6D) near infinity focus, so you have to be careful to switch to live view if you want to focus to infinity (all of these tests were done with live view 10x focus anyway). The copy of the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 that I ordered for this comparison arrived in extremely disappointing shape. It was full of internal fungus that probably adds a bit of haze. In fact, it had been obviously disassembled by someone and they mounted the aperture ring upside down when they put it back together!
My preferred old school mount is M42 (screw mount), because the mounted adapts very solid and securely because of the threads. My Zeiss lens is a native Contax/Yashica mount, a bayonet mount, and I don’t find that the bayonet mounts are as secure in their adapters. My adapter, for example, allows the lens to sag just a little, which effectively (and exasperatingly) limits infinity focus. I discovered just how much it was affecting this during the test and remedied it afterward with some double sided tape between the bayonet mount and the adapter. I wish I had done this sooner, as it provides a much more secure adapting.
Finally, the Helios 44-2 (an old Soviet lens [mine says “Made in USSR in English!!!”] that has an Biotar optical formula originally stolen from Carl Zeiss Jena) is a “preset” lens, which means that it does not have traditionally defined hard stops on the aperture ring but instead functions like a “declicked” cine lens. In theory one could set move it to the position of traditional aperture values on a second dial, but on my old copy that ring is loose and leaves one guessing. I have learned to eyeball the aperture as compared to other lenses and I think I must get it fairly close as the shutter speeds seem to match.
These issues certainly affect the outcome, and obviously having a native Canon mount is one clear advantage for the modern Rokinon. One disadvantage, however, is the very clear philosophy change in modern lenses that makes everything, well, massive. The Rokinon is easily twice the size of all of the other options, and its filter size is 77mm compared to 49mm for most of the old lenses. The largest of the vintage glass is the Zeiss, at it is only 55mm.
So can the modern giant easily defeat the vintage competitors? Let’s take a look.
Test Notes: Canon EOS 6D mounted on a tripod (Vanguard ABEO Pro 283AT Tripod + GH-300T Head), focused via Live View 10x (mirror up), 2 Second Delay to eliminate vibration. All shots done in Medium Fine JPEG setting (no post production). Note that one of the lenses is 55mm and another is 58mm, so the framing in all of these tests won’t be identical.
First Test: Close Focus – Contrast and C/A Testing
Our first test is an excellent one for determining a few things. This simple test is of a page of text with a bright white background. There is a huge amount of contrast between the white paper and the black text. This test is great for revealing chromatic aberrations or bokeh fringing that is very common to large aperture lenses. It also quickly shows the amount of contrast the lens is capable of. Because the depth of field is so small the bokeh fringing in the fore and backgrounds is easily revealed. A great result, obviously, is one that shows bright whites, deep blacks, and little to no green or purple fringing in the out of focus areas. The best result that I have seen in this test is the Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4. One of the worst performances was from another Zeiss, the Planar T* 50mm f/1.4. I often just do this test wide open, but I thought it would be interesting to see these results at a few apertures – wide open, f/2, and f/2.8. For one thing, we have a total of four different maximum apertures (2 @ f/1.4, 1 @ f/1.7, 1 @ f/1.8, and 1 @f/2). I did a series of three shots for all lenses save the Helios, for which I did two. The reason for this is that maximum aperture for the Helios is f/2.
The winner here wide open is the Rokinon, in a pretty strong performance. Its advantage isn’t huge, however, and it shows perhaps the most purple fringing before the plane of focus. The clear loser here wide open is the Zeiss, with noticeably less contrast than the others. Both of the Takumar lenses fair quite well, too, as does the Helios. The Takumar 50mm f/1.4 is losing some light (due to the fungus and aging of the glass?), and is noticeably dimmer at the same exposure value as the other lenses (save the Helios, which should be compared to the f/2 values of the other lenses). The Zeiss’s light transmission doesn’t seem any different than the Rokinon’s light transmission. I expect DXOMark to rate the T-Stop of the Rokinon at something closer to 1.6. One final observation is that almost all of these (save the Zeiss) show a huge leap forward in contrast when stopped down to f/2; the result is noticeably better with much crisper contrast between the page and text along with reduced fringing. The Zeiss doesn’t make its quantum leap forward until f/2.8. Still, a close comparison shows the win even at f/2.8 belongs to the Rokinon, although the Zeiss delivers the most light transmission at f/2.8 of any of the lenses (Zeiss’s coatings have always been very good!) Here are a look at the crops from the wide open examples here:
In the second test I set up our “portrait subject” six foot away from the camera. I felt this was a fairly typical distance for using these lenses for portraits. Using an actual portrait subject is next to impossible for this type of test because of their movement, so I used a static subject that has a fair amount of detail. I used a solid background that would also give us a peak at vignetting. Once I again I used the same aperture values as before, so there is only two from the Helios.
The Rokinon is again the clear winner in the overall image quality save one detail that I’ll note in a moment. It shows the best sharpness and contrast. That large front element shows its value here as the lens clearly shows the least amount of vignetting. This is a very good performance; viegnetting is clearly not an issue with this lens. The light transmission between the Zeiss and the Rokinon is again near equal despite the Zeiss having a maximum f/1.7 aperture vs. f/1.4 for the Rokinon. The most heavy vignetting is from the SMC Tak 1.4 and the Helios, with the Zeiss and the SMC Tak bringing up the middle.
As I have noticed previously with other Rokinon lenses, the lens renders colors fairly warmly when compared with other lenses. The most accurate (neutral) color unsurprisingly comes from the Zeiss. The Helios is definitely the coolest, while the two Takumars are warmer than the Zeiss but not as much as the Rokinon. This is, to me, is the only mark against the Rokinon here. When pixel peeping the f/2.8 images the details are better (much) on the Rokinon, but I prefer the overall look of the image from the Zeiss, which just seems more balanced. Ironically the Rokinon gives the appearance of more vignetting at f/2.8, and the Zeiss has better light transmission here. It is the great look from the Zeiss that makes it my typical choice when I am shooting video for my video reviews. One final note: only the Zeiss exhibits any noticeable focus shift as it is stopped down. When one is shooting RAW, white balance is less of an issue.
The SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 delivers the best overall performance from the vintage lenses in terms of resolution and contrast and is reasonably close to the Rokinon, but the Rokinon delivers a clearly brighter image, less vignetting, as well as better contrast. The SMC Takumar f/1.4 delivers the “haziest/dreamiest” image here, and while the fungus is somewhat of a culprit here I do know from previous copies that this is somewhat typical for the lens. Some like this particular look for portraits, but I personally prefer a sharp, contrasty look out of the lens. One can easily reduce contrast in post, but creating contrast and resolution is a far more difficult task. The Rokinon is your choice for portraiture, although the Zeiss produces an overall very pleasing look.
One final thing: I love the Helios for portraits, and the reasons won’t show up in this test. At the 6-10 foot distance with the right background the Helios will produce a unique, “swirly” bokeh that is the signature look for the lens. It’s an aberration, yes, but an awesome one that creates very unique and artistic results. It has long been my favorite vintage portrait lens.
Here are the center crops from the wide open results.
In our third and final test of the 50mm Shootout we will examine how that contrast and resolution works out in the real world. I wanted to test the lenses at infinity focus and see how they perform when stopped down further. It was here that the infinity focus issue with the Zeiss became clear. I shot a series of four shots each: wide open, f/2.8, f/4, F/8. The wind was just whipping in gusts over the open expanse of the river, and the light was in a constant state of flux. During some sequences the wind would be driving snow and some of the snow resolution could be obscured. Despite that variability I feel confident in drawing a few conclusions.
The focal point here was the lighthouse, so in the wider apertures it is that plane of focus that we will examine the closest.
The first conclusion is that the Rokinon really, really showed off in this setting. The f/1.4 image is somewhat diminished by the limitations of a maximum shutter speed of 1/4000th on the 6D body that I was using. It could have used a faster shutter speed. The f/2.8 and f/4 images both look amazing, however. The closest competitor is the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, which makes an amazing jump from wide open to f/2.8 in terms of contrast and resolution. Both the f/4 and f/8 images from it are very impressive. This was very revealing to me considering the fungus in the lens, although I do find the color a bit muddier here than any of the other images.
The first two images from the Zeiss are complete throwaways. It was extremely bright out there and pretty hard to see the LCD screen, but I could tell that something wasn’t right with infinity focus. I discovered the “rocking” issue with the mount in between the f/2.8 and f/4 shots, and you can see a huge difference between them that has nothing to do with native resolution. The Zeiss ends up showing some of the best contrast in the focal plane objects (lighthouse and ice shacks), but for some reason doesn’t show nearly as much detail in the snow. The Zeiss has great color, but comparing the Rokinon and the Zeiss shows a very clear win for the Rokinon. My favorite image of the whole series is the f/4 result from the Rokinon; it is a fabulous looking image. If I were sharing one of these images and adding it to my personal portfolio, it would be that one.
Amongst the vintage lenses my favorite image is the f/4 result from the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4. I was quite surprised by this result and how it performed from f/2.8 on. It is a remarkably sharp lens when stopped down. I would expect a better example of the lens to perform even better. As I go over the images again, however, I realize that the shifting light made a huge difference from image to image on how the foreground textures in the snow would render. The Rokinon f/4 results look much crisper than the f/8 results, but the actual resolution difference between those two apertures is probably minimal at best. Processing the images to recover highlights and enhancing shadows would minimize these differences. The real world isn’t very “scientific”, but we all shoot in the real world.
I’ve included both the wide open crops along with the f/4 results here:
I wanted to conclude by showing you why I love these old lenses. Here is a little mini review of each lens along with a gallery of favorite images I have taken with it. Many of these images are processed; some are not. I want you to see, however, the character of the images that can be achieved with some of these old lenses.
The Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 AS IF UMC is easily the best lens of the bunch in terms of its optics. After close examination I would say that it is very close to rivaling the optics from the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART series lens (I think CA is a better controlled on the Sigma). The Rokinon has better looking bokeh than the Sigma. Ironically the challenge for both of these lenses is getting them focused. The Rokinon is a fairly demanding lens to manually focus; the Sigma has sometime erratic autofocus. The Rokinon has better contrast, resolution, and consistency than these older lenses. It also has beautiful drawing and bokeh that matches and even bests the old fellows, and does a better job of retaining round bokeh highlights when stopped down. I wish its price were $100 less; I would enthusiastically endorse it if this were the case. The modern size has helped to overcome some of the optical shortcomings of the older lenses, but I really like the fact that it has beautiful drawing and look to the images that feels old school at the same time. As this gallery shows, it is easily capable of producing stunning images.
The SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 is a beloved lens by a lot of people for a reason. It’s got personality, including a “radioactive” thorium element in some copies. It is somewhat dreamy (low contrast) wide open, but has nice bokeh and color and sharpens up drastically when stopped down even one stop. It is also tiny for a f/1.4 lens, with a 49mm front element and a size so compact that is very easy to drop it in a pocket and bring it along. It has a beautiful build quality as well, with a very smoothly focusing metal focus ring that is usually damped just about right. I’ve owned three or four copies (all much better than this one), and will probably replace this one (I’m sending it back to the seller) with a better copy. Just know that if you are using it on a Canon full frame body you will probably have a minor issue with mirror hang at or near infinity focus. This is one place where mirrorless bodies are much better! There will also be some vignetting, but this is both easy to fix in post and often produces a very stylish effect for portraiture. A decent copy will typically cost between $75-$150 on Ebay. Some of these have 8 aperture blades which helps a bit in keeping apertures rounder until f/5.6 or so.
The SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 in many ways scarcely seems like an old lens (other than the fact it is really tiny). It has few optical imperfections. I wouldn’t mind it having a bit more contrast wide open, but it produces beautiful images. It also focuses down very close, and is a great lens to throw an extension tube and use as a cheap macro option. It resolves very nicely near minimum focus, and stopped down a bit produces contrasty, sharp images. Nice color rendition. It functions perfectly on modern bodies. No mirror hang issues, focuses to infinity fine, and has moderate vignetting. Light transmission seems pretty good. My only real beef optically is that bokeh highlights get hexagonal pretty quick because of the six non-rounded aperture blades. It is the worst of the group in that regard. It too has a beautiful build that has lasted decades without issue. The focus ring is very accurate and beautifully damped. Best of all, you can find a copy any day of the week from Ebay for under $50. I’ve mounted mine on at least six different cameras and gotten some great pics on all of them. It stays around because it is low risk, fairly high reward.
The Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 has been my favorite vintage prime for one main reason – it produces incredibly unique images that people tend to fall in love with. Almost every image I have shared on photo sharing sites from the Helios have had a very enthusiastic response. I paid less than $30 shipped for mine (straight from Russia!). It is a great portrait option, a great fine art lens, and just a fun lens to play around with in general. It has any number of optical aberrations (swirly bokeh, highly flare prone) but these all seem to have a lot of artistic merit and end up being, to me, strengths for the lens instead of weaknesses. One of my common criticisms of many modern lenses is that they are too sterile, too clinical, and lack personality. The Helios has that in spades, and if you can get your hands on the 44 (85mm f/1.5), it has even more (but at a price usually 10-15x higher). Like the 50mm f/1.4, it will hang near infinity on the full frame bodies I have used it on. On the rare occasions I am shooting at or near infinity, I just switch to Live View (make sure to back focus off infinity before exiting Live View). If you do hang on the mirror a bit, don’t panic. I’ve done it dozens of times before with no damage to my camera or the lens. My copy looks like garbage, but shoots like magic. By the way, the Helios was before its time with curved aperture blades that stay quite round until around f/8 or so, so the bokeh is pretty great from this lens. This one probably won’t ever leave my kit. It costs me little and produces images like nothing else I own. (There are two galleries from this one because I have so many favorites!)
The Zeiss Distagon T* 1.7/50mm is my newest vintage lens addition (the gallery will be a little smaller for it). I’ve been reviewing a lot of Zeiss lenses in the past year, and I wanted to try an older Zeiss lens (it was first manufactured in 1975; I’m not sure when mine was produced). I’ve noted some of its strengths and weaknesses throughout this review, but in many ways I am very pleased with it. I’ve long noted the strength of Zeiss lenses when it comes to their color fidelity. This lens doesn’t have the biting contrast of some more expensive Zeiss lenses that I have reviewed, but the images just have a look about them that I’m partial to. I paid a little more for it than any of these others, but I still got it for about $170, which is, by Zeiss standards, quite a bargain. I love it as a video lens. It produces very nice, very crisp video with great color rendition. I typically use it at about f/2.8 to f/4 for this setting. Bokeh is quite good but not the best I’ve seen, and by about f/5.6 it will start to go hexagonal, but it does keep a round shape longer than the SMC Tak 55mm. Images from the Zeiss are just very pleasing for that indefinable reason, so I expect this lens will be hanging around my kit for that reason. The damping on my lens’ focus ring is quite light, so while I don’t like the weight overall as well as the Takumars, I do find the lens very quick to make extreme focus changes. It doesn’t feel as robust as the other vintage lenses, but also feels more modern in a number of ways. It has better flare resistance than the other lenses, and the Zeiss coatings (T*) have long been amongst the industry’s best. This lens has no issues on a modern full frame body with mirror hang. If you find a good deal on one, it would be worth getting and playing with. The one challenge is that if you are a couple of hundred dollars into one you are halfway to the cost of the modern Rokinon, which is clearly a superior lens in every way save overall color rendition.
One final reason for sharing these galleries is to inspire you. There is a lot of character and a lot to be loved in some of these old primes from yesteryear. They are easy to find, inexpensive, and can produce some marvelous images on modern digital bodies. We get caught up in optical perfection and test charts, sometimes, but there is more to great images than optical perfection. I note that some new lenses are almost too perfect for their own good. I call them “clinical”. They are digital, not analog, and lack some of the character and charm of these old lenses. What endears the new Rokinon to me the most is that it seems to have some of that same charm. It is the “winner” amongst these lenses, but really, they are all winners.
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