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Rating: 
Summary: Should be L
Review: Excellent piece of glass, does a great job blurring backgrounds and delivers sharp and crisp images. A must have for any decent portrait photographer.
Rating:
Summary: ideal at night
Review: i bought this lense questioning myself - why should i spend any extra over the 1.8?
well, i'm convinced now. a lense i thought i would occasionally take out for portraits has turned out to be an absolute stock in the collection. it actually comes out more than most zoom lenses.
i'm using a 10d body, so the lense is effectively 80mm. most of my shots are at night. this is the only lense i can get consistent use out of without a tripod. that's really saying something. dead of night, no tripod, good pictures. highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent lens for portraits and wide-field astrophotography
Review: I'll start by reiterating what other reviewers have said. This lens is amazingly sharp and one of the fastest focal ratios in the Canon lens lineup. Its metal mount and rugged construction make it well worth the added expense when compared to the f/1.8 version. The effective 80mm focal length on D10, D20, and 300D cameras make it the perfect portraiture lens for people not willing to shell out for an old 50mm f/1.0L ($$$!).
I do a fair amount of astrophotography and this is truly the test of optical quality for a lens. Trying to resolve point sources of light on a black background will truly bring out any aberration and coma that are present. With this in mind, I tested this lens on a star field and looked at stars in the corners of the frame while stepping up the focal ratio from f/1.4 to f/5.6 and found that it is more or less fully sharp by f/2.8. Many lenses I use for astrophotography only get as fast as f/2.8 and I have to step them all the way down to f/5.6 to get rid of the aberration. This lens can operate extremely fast and still be optically wonderful. Most terrestrial photography won't need to worry about this, but you can rest assureed that your photos will be sharp as tacks from f/2.8 on up.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect glass
Review: I'm using this on a Canon 1Ds and find it to be perfect, as noted elsewhere when used around F4 it is the sharpness standard by which other lenses are to be measured, a perfect piece of glass, the best I've seen. And stopped down to F1.4 it allows a focal depth of a few inches for singling out a subject within a field. Great stuff!
Rating:
Summary: You Deserve the Best - Go with Top Notch Quality Only!
Review: Like many, I'm just an amateur photographer. If you are using the standard 18-55mm lens that accompanies the Canon EOS Digital Rebel kit, you've probably discovered how slow the lens is. With a f/3.5-5.6 aperture, the lens is better suited for outdoor photos where natural lighting is available. With indoor photos, I've found myself using the built-in flash repeatedly, thus drowning out a lot of the natural color. This was particularly true with photographs of people. Thus, I sought out a high quality lens, high speed lens -- this is definitely one you'll want in your lens collection. The 50mm size best simulates a person's visual perspective, so it tends to avoid the type of distortion apparent in wide angle photos. The distortion is rather minor, but more pronounced when you use 28mm or wider. If you are accustomed to using a wide angle lens, you need to be forewarned that your perspective appears extremely narrow when using a 50mm lens. Be sure to take a look at a 50mm lens in person and make sure that you are okay with it. Overall, Canon quality is unsurpassed and my photos come out clear and much brighter as a result of the lens' speed. I've tested other brands and occasionally, you face incompatibility problems. Often, you end up wishing that you didn't buy an off brand anyway, so I've learned to avoid long term regrets about why I didn't buy a dedicated Canon product. Life is too short -- save up your money and buy top quality equipment. You won't waste time second-guessing your decisions!
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT - At a price
Review: This 50mm is amazing. I truly love it. I debated a long time between the 1.8 and the 1.4. In the end, I figured I'd never replace it again so get the 1.4. I love it - the images it makes are staggering. Still - it's pricy compared to the 1.8 - but not to L series lenses. I think it's worth it. I read online it had barrel distortion wide open - and it does if you really study the image - but that's perfectly OK with me for the 1.4 shallow depth of field. Normal people will never see that at all. One drawback you may not think of is that beautiful wide open 1.4 aperture is not available to you if there is much light. It's so fast it's easy to overexpose - even with 1/4000th of a second shutter. It takes awesome portraits - awesome landscapes. This is a must have lens in every EOS owner's bag. Don't get the 1.8 and wish you got this one. Get this one and start taking great photos.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic lens, but not without its quirks.
Review: This lens will give you a half-stop above the f1.8 version, as well as a metal mount, somewhat more solid construction, full-time manual focusing, and a distance scale. The color and sharpness are excellent and, as tests available on the web reveal, beat the f1.8 version, particularly at the corners.
The lens is somewhat soft wide open, though you do get the use of f1.4, which will get you shots you might otherwise miss. It does well at f2, but needs to be stopped down a minimum of two stops (to f2.8) before its true sharpness is revealed. By f4-5.6 it's blindingly sharp, enough to serve as a measure for all other lenses.
This lens does not use a true USM ring motor, instead using a slightly noisier, slower, and less accurate micro motor with a full-time manual clutch. People with 10Ds (such as myself) have reported focus problems, and mine seems to miss focus under certain conditions more often than my more solidly constructed lenses. Apparently, 1-series cameras with superior focus systems work much more pleasingly with the 50/1.4.
Despite these issues, the 50/1.4 is an excellent lens. On a camera with a 1.6x crop factor (10D, D60), this makes a wonderful portrait lens. One just needs to keep these quirks in mind.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic lens, but not without its quirks.
Review: This lens will give you a half-stop above the f1.8 version, as well as a metal mount, somewhat more solid construction, full-time manual focusing, and a distance scale. The color and sharpness are excellent.The lens is somewhat soft wide open, though you do get the use of f1.4, which will get you shots you might otherwise miss. It does well at f2, but needs to be stopped down a minimum of two stops (to f2.8) before its true sharpness is revealed. By f4-5.6 it's blindingly sharp, enough to serve as a measure for all other lenses. This lens does not use a true USM ring motor, instead using a slightly noisier, slower, and less accurate micro motor with a full-time manual clutch. People with 10Ds (such as myself) have reported focus problems, and mine seems to miss focus under certain conditions more often than my more solidly constructed lenses. Apparently, 1-series cameras with superior focus systems work much more pleasingly with the 50/1.4. Despite these issues, the 50/1.4 is an excellent lens. On a camera with a 1.6x crop factor (10D, D60), this makes an excellent portrait lens. One just needs to keep these quirks in mind.
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