This is the lightest EF lens of all at a mere 4.6 oz. (130g). Compact and high-performance, standard lens. Its Gaussian optics provide sharp delineation from near to far focusing distances. The color balance is excellent for a standard lens.

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Reviews

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens Review by The-digital-picture.com

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens is a good low-light indoor photography lens – especially when a flash is not appropriate or desired. It works very well in a church or gym for example. Aside from having mediocre bokeh, the 50 f/1.8 makes a good focal length for full-body portraits. If mounted on a 1.6x FOVCF camera, you will need some extra space to accomplish a full-body portrait and might also want to capture head/shoulder portraits with this lens.

Need to travel light? Mount the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens on a small DSLR and you have one of the smallest, lightest and least expensive low-light combinations available.

The drawbacks of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens are easily overlooked when one looks at the price. This lens is not for everyone, but I don’t know of a better lens available for twice this price.

Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II review by DPReview.com

Conclusion – Pros

• Excellent image quality when stopped down
• Essentially no lateral chromatic aberration
• Extremely cheap

Conclusion – Cons

• Extremely cheaply built
• Harsh and distracting bokeh due to pentagonal aperture
• Vignetting at wide apertures on full frame (which only disappears at F3.5)
• Inconsistent autofocus in low light (most problematic when using large apertures)

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II (Full Format) – Review by photozone.de

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II may be a “cheap” lens but it is undoubtedly a capable one. It shares its characteristics with most other 50mm lenses, reads: it’s somewhat soft at f/1.8 but at medium aperture settings it is hard to beat with respect to resolution. Distortions as well as lateral CAs are basically non-issues. Vignetting is a significant problem at f/1.8 and even at f/2.8 but that (heavy vignetting at max. aperture) is something to get used to on full format DSLRs anyway. A more significant weakness of the lens is the rather nervous bokeh (out-of-focus blur) which may spoil the game in some shallow depth-of-field situations. At around 100EUR/US$ you can’t expect superb build quality but frankly it’s “good enough” here anyway and it’s certainly one of the value kings out there.