Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat lens
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2012
This lens is fantastic. I have the canon 24-70 2.8 and this lens is far sharper. It is also sharper than the canon 50 1.4 lens. I cant tell any difference from my 100 macro lens. Color and bokeh are also excellent. Picked it up during the lightning deal and couldnt believe the quality at the price i paid. The focus ring is excellent. The hood is of good quality. The front cap is annoying. The aperture ring turns easy with a click for each half stop (except a couple are full stop). The lens feels solid. I considered the canon 35 L but i already have the zoom for those occasions that autofocus is a must.
Manual focus takes a little practice but not that hard, as long as your target does not move too fast (i.e. toddler). You do need a camera with live view (and the zoom in feature for magnification) to focus accurately. The optical view finder is difficult to use for focus unless you have a special focus screen, which i dont think they make for lower end dslr. The best mode to use is aperture priority as the metering works in that mode. You can leave it on whichever aperture on the lens all the time including when composing your shot and the metering will be correct. You dont have to switch to 1.4 to compose/meter. The view finder can be a little dark at f5.6 and above but since i use live view to focus it doesnt really matter. I find the metering is most accurate when i turn off live view after focusing/composing and take the shot the traditional way without looking through the view finder. May have something to do with the metering mode in live view. Shooting directly in live view tend to underexpose for me with this lens (my camera is a canon t3i).
Btw, my lens (canon mount) did not have any noise when moved up/down as some people have experienced. Built quality is excellent.