- Tamron 28-75mm 1:2.8
- Canon EF 50mm 1:2.5 Compact-Macro
- Canon EF 28mm 1:2.8
- Tamron 17-50mm 1:2.8
- Canon EF 24mm 1:2.8
- Konica Hexar AF
- Sigma 12-24mm 4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM
- Minolta MC W.Rokkor - NL 21mm 1:2.8
- Canon BG-ED3 Battery Grip
- Canon 10D
- Sigma EF-500 DG Super EO ETTL
- Minolta Dimage Scan Elite II
- Sears 55mm 1:1.4
- Minolta X-370
- Canon EF 28-90mm 1:4-5.6 III
- Canon 400D (Rebel XTi)
Canon EF 50mm 1:2.5 Compact-Macro
Date:
1/5/2010 Despite my access to a large variety of camera gear I sometimes wish I owned just one lens and one body. Better to be well practiced with one set of tools than fumbling through the manual trying to figure out the new gear at hand. Maybe Canon thought they could design a lens that did it all and fit into the just-one-body-and-lens photographer's camera bag. Perhaps they were after a sharp normal lens with a faster-than-most-consumer-zooms aperture and the ability to get fancy close up images of flowers. Let's see how it worked out.
Introduced in 1987, Canon's 50mm 1:2.5 Compact-Macro is one of the oldest lenses in the lineup. This 'macro' lens offers up to 1:2 reproduction as opposed to the 1:1 offered by most true macro lenses. The Canon Life-Size Converter EF (extension tube), which allows up to 1:1 reproduction when used with this lens, was not evaluated during this review.
The first portion of this review was typical shooting. No attempt was made to utilize the macro-like features of this lens. This phase was rather uneventful. My first impression was of a longer version of the early Canon 50mm 1:1.8. Decent build quality, metal lens mount, but still reasonably small and light. The added length also gives a reasonable grip for the left hand when pulling the camera up against the body to steady a marginal shutter speed. The inner portion of the lens extends substantially when focusing close. The front lens element is recessed rather far into the housing and is well protected enough that I chose to forgo a protective filter for most of the review.
Like many of the EOS primes of it's era, when focused manually, the lens lacks dampening and has a 'scratchy' feel. When autofocusing the lens is somewhat noisy but reasonably fast for a non USM lens. Unless the lens misses focus and hunts from one extreme to the other. This results in a substantial lag in locking focus. Fortunately this happened only rarely.
I was mostly happy with the resulting images with one surprise. I experienced a bit of flare while shooting a street lamp at dusk. In this particular image the flare was minimal but was noticeable. Otherwise the sharpness, color, and contrast were pleasing for most of the images. A number of the images shot at 5.6 or 6.7 showed the excellent resolution potential of this lens.
Phase two was to get into 'macro mode'. Unfortunately the camera and lens were handicapped severely by the photographer. Macro photography is not a well practiced art for me. A fair amount of time and a number of photons were wasted as I reprogrammed my internal software. After a few fruitless fits and starts I produced some acceptable images that helped show what this lens was made of. The images showed excellent sharpness in the plane of focus. The background bokeh was just OK with background highlights turning to slightly bright edged polygons. I chose to shoot stopped down by about two stops and at minimum focus distance. These settings required flash but more closely duplicated how the lens would be used when shooting 'up close'.
The final piece of the puzzle turned out to be a lens comparison of sorts. While reviewing this lens I realized I had access to five lenses that covered the 50mm or 55mm focal length. Three were primes while two were zoom lenses. One of the zooms was well regarded and I thought it might have been able to hold its own against the primes. The performance potential of one of the primes, an older M42 screw mount third party lens, grabbed my curiosity. The subject of this review also got a chance to go against it's similar age sibling, an early metal mount Canon EF 50mm 1:1.8. Despite my enthusiasm about the results of this comparison, there was no joy during the actual set up and shooting of said comparison. I lack the equipment to do proper scientific test shoots. The specifics of the setup is detailed later as are the results. Let's call it a 'ballpark comparison' of similar lenses.
The Ballpark Comparison included the following entrants:
Canon EF 50mm 1:2.5 Compact-Macro - The subject of this review.
Canon EF 50mm 1:1.8 - The original 'Nifty Fifty'. This is the one that shares optics with the modern 50mm 1:1.8 II but is built more ruggedly, has a metal lens mount, and has a proper manual focus ring. Used copies sell for twice what the new version sells for new.
Canon EF 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6 - A well built older zoom that features USM focus and a metal mount. This lens is not known for its optical quality.
Sears M42 Mount 55mm 1:1.4 - A big, heavy, manual focus lens attached to a Chinese M42 to EOS 'focus confirmation chipped' adapter.
Tamron 17-50mm 1:2.8 - This lens is well regarded and is one of only three lenses I grab when not evaluating gear for this site.
The Ballpark Comparison technique was as scientific as I could stand. My Canon 10D was utilized on a tripod with the image quality set to the highest quality JPEG at ISO 100. A 430EX II flash was mounted atop the 10D. Manual mode allowed a fast shutter speed of 1/200th to exclude ambient light. All lenses were set to f:2.8 except for the EF 28-80mm which was set to f:4.0. Focus was the biggest challenge. I gave the autofocus lenses a chance. All but one showed improvement when focused manually. The test target was a full size sports supply advertisement from the local newspaper taped to the wall. A carpenters square was utilized in hopes of getting the test target plane and camera sensor plane as parallel as possible.
Interpreting the results might be the trickiest part of this exercise. No hard numbers are available, just my observations. I've graded the lenses into three categories based on sharpness but have also included other notes about performance where appropriate. None of the lenses showed significant chromatic aberrations (color fringing at dark to bright transitions) on my test images. From widest to longest:
Tamron 17-50mm 1:2.8 - Medium sharpness, some vignetting. This lens, which should have been at a disadvantage due to being wide open, ranked quite well against most of the prime lenses.
Canon EF 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6 - Least sharp, minor vignetting, slight overexposure. This economy zoom from years past turned in the worst image despite being stopped down to f:4.0.
Canon EF 50mm 1:2.5 Compact-Macro - Medium sharpness, slight overexposure. Despite great sharpness when stopped down a bit, at f:2.8 it turned in an average performance.
Canon EF 50mm 1:1.8 - Most sharp, difficult to focus. This lens showed why it is still so highly coveted on the used market. It was clearly the sharpest in this comparison. Perfect focus was more difficult to find but was worth the effort.
Sears M42 Mount 55mm 1:1.4 - Medium sharpness. While it was the fastest lens in this comparison, it was also the oldest. My previous experience has shown that this lens, which is somewhat soft wide open, didn't give great results until f:4.0 or f:5.6.
Where does that leave Canon's 50mm 1:2.5 Compact-Macro? Most true macro lenses offer a 1:1 replication and have longer focal lengths which allow more room between the subject and the shooter. For general photography, Canon's 'Nifty Fifty' is sharper, offers a stop more speed, and costs less. I don't think it a good fit for me, but if you are a photog who desires near 'true macro' replication, the potential for seriously sharp (when stopped down) images, prefers to own fewer lenses than more, and is on a budget, this could be the one for you.
Image Gallery
Campbell Field at Dusk
ISO 800, f:4, 1/125th. Post process: crop to square, convert to greyscale.
The local school has been torn down, rebuilt, and now adorned with a fancified sports field.
Street Lamp
ISO 800, f:6.7, 1/250th. Post process: Adjust white balance.
There are two exterior lights in this image. One is classy and lit. The other is not. One or two stops of negative exposure compensation dialed in to increase saturation and push the lamp into silhouette.
