Canon 50mm f1.8 sharpness test Photo Gallery by Chris Krueger at pbase.com

Canon 50mm f1.8 sharpness test

These are 100% crops of the center portion of a test image. They were shot on a tripod using a remote shutter release.

The shots were RAW, processed in C1 with no sharpening to 8-bit TIFFs, then cropped and saved to JPEG in PS8 at maximum ("12") quality. No processing has been done other than cropping levels to 0-128 in C1 because I forgot to set EC to account for the meter.

Additionally, I tested my 50/1.8 a while back for focus accuracy, and it was spot on: +/- 0.5 stops over a bunch of shots.

I suggest viewing the original images to avoid any artifacts from pbase's recompression.

50 1.8 at f1.8.jpg	50 1.8 at f2.jpg	50 f1.8 at f2.2.jpg	50 1.8 at f2.5.jpg
50 1.8 at f2.8.jpg	50 1.8 at f3.2.jpg	50 1.8 at f3.5.jpg	50 1.8 at f4.jpg
50 1.8 at f4.5.jpg	50 1.8 at f5.jpg	50 1.8 at f5.6.jpg	50 1.8 at f8.jpg
50 f1.8 at f11.jpg	50 1.8 at f22.jpg

post a comment

Frank Ravizza		05-Jun-2005 06:42
Great test! Resolution definately peaked at f/8. I'm surprised how poorly it performed below f/5.6. I tend to use my 50mm II at f/2.8 to achieve an out of focus background. This test tells me sharpenss will improve signifigantly to f/5.6. I already knew how soft this lens was at f/1.8 from my own exprience. The corners must be quite bad at large apetures. Also there's a slight bit of barrel distortion in this lens, very noticable when sticking panoramas so watch out for that. Thanks again for the test.

Chris Krueger		18-Jan-2005 05:15
No problem Phil, happy to help!

Phil		11-Jan-2005 09:44
This is great information for someone looking to buy one of these lenses. I really appreciate it! Many thanks :) Phil

click on thumbnails for full image