I have this lens and it it fantastic for portrait photographs. In fact, a lynda.com instructional video from a pro instructor advised that this is one of the best lenses for the price that a serious photographer could buy. So, I bought one. For ten bucks less than the woot “deal” here. Great lens, not a hot price! Where has the good ole woot gone?
But, I just noticed that this one is listed as “STM.” Well, the STM means, on my other lenses, that they have a quiet auto focus motor. This means that while shooting video, you do not hear the motors focusing in and out like you do on the older lenses.
This is a fixed lens. Why on earth would one shoot video with it?
It’s the auto-focus being quieted down, not the zoom. If you are shooting video professionally, you aren’t zooming in and out during shots, thus it’s not really needed if you happen to be shooting with a prime lens. Do your shot, pick the camera up, set your next shot up and shoot it from the new position. Could also have multiple cameras using 50mm at multiple angles. Keep in mind many people use DSLR’s professionally for video vs a regular video-only camera these days. Lots of different uses/purposes/methods.
My only issue with it is, once you pop it on a crop camera (Canon in this case) you’re at a very zoomed in 80mm fixed. I’ve been looking at the 35mm lens, which puts you more in the 50mm neighborhood (56mm once you factor in the 1.6x crop factor on Canon, 1.5 for Nikon). that said, I’m still shopping for one under $100.
Yes the effective focal length on a consumer dslr is about 80, not 50. The point is that for decades before dslr’s were on the market all of the major lens manufacturers competed (and therefore spent lots of R&D$'s) to make the best 50. Those R&D $'s have long been amortized such that a bottom of the line 50 like this one represents exceptional sharpness and a wide aperture.