Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II - Review / Test Report - Analysis
Lens Reviews - Canon EOS (APS-C)

Distortion

As expected for a fix-focal lens the level of distortion is negligible:

The chart above has a real-world size of about 120x80cm. Possibly things may get a little worse with extreme close-ups.

Vignetting

Vignetting is well controlled with the lens - at least on a 1.6x DSLR. Wide-open vignetting is a little stronger with ~0.7EV - it's surely quite a bit more on EOS 1D cameras. In critical scenes vignetting may be noticeable on a EOS 350D as well. However, the problem is basically non-existent at f/2.8 and beyond.

MTF (resolution & chromatic aberrations)

The Canon performed very good to excellent in the lab although a centering problem was quite apparent. At wide-open aperture the resolution is already very good and even across the frame. Stopping down lifts the quality to excellent levels peaking around f/5.6.

The chromatic aberrations (CA) are no significant issue with this lens.

Please note that the MTF results are not directly comparable across the different systems!

Below is a simplified summary of the formal findings. The chart shows line widths per picture height (LW/PH) which can be taken as a measure for sharpness. If you want to know more about the MTF50 figures you may check out the corresponding Imatest Explanations



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