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Author
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stepheno
Pixalo Crew
Registered: July 2005
Posts: 7120
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Review Date: Tue August 1, 2006
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £85.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Build, metal mount, tack sharp, low light
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Cons:
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None
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To all intents and purposes this is the same lens as the Mark II. Optically they are the same but the metal lens mount does give the build a better feel and quality to it. It also has a range scale for manual focusing
It produces excellent, sharp images and is at home in low light situations. I always have this lens in my bag and often use it when walking about towns and cities. It gives a different perspective to a zoom since you have to move around to get your shot. It is also an excellent indoor and portrait lens.
You will pay more for a used Mark I than a new Mark II. It's still cheap as chips and if you can get hold of one I would recommend it.
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Warspite
Feet under the table
Registered: September 2005
Location: Newcastle Sunderland Middlesbrough (UK)
Posts: 1736
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Review Date: Wed August 2, 2006
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £40.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Build quality, low light capability, optics
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Cons:
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Squeaky, no USM
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Managed to get this from Jessops second hand, was an absolute bargain at £40 and in perfect condition.
Basically a great lens, even at three times the price it would be worth it. Brilliant for those times when there just isnt enough light to get the shutter speed, and also allows for some beautiful background blur.
Build quality is in my opinion better than the MK II due to the metal mount, also the distance scale can be useful - although to be honest I rarely use it. The size of this lens means theres never a reason to take it as it can sit in the bottom of the bag, or even in your pocket, equally the weight is no issus either I find. I understand that the optics are identical to the MKII so no advantage or disadvantage there.
Only negative about this lens I find is the MKI is a little noisy, not earth shattering, but people close to you will be able to hear it squeak.
For the price theres little reason not to have either this or the MKII version in your lens bag, as its an excellent low light lens, which also makes a very flexible portrait lens
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_MB_
Forum Regular
Registered: March 2007
Location: Northumberland, UK
Posts: 844
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Review Date: Sun December 9, 2007
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £86.00
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Build compared to Mk2, sharpness, contrast, fast AF
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Cons:
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Price 2nd hand, only 5 aperture blades, noisy AF, no FTM
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There's not much to say. The lens is very very sharp, as you would expect from such a simple design, and autofocus is very quick, as you would expect from such a large aperture lens.
Pictures are vibrant and razor sharp straight out the camera, they don't need much work in PS to lift them as you might with say the 18-55 type lenses. The Mk1 has all the things the Mk2 lost to cut costs, so there are metal elements to its construction, a dof scale on the barrel, amid barrel focus ring. This makes it desirable and necessarily significantly dearer than the Mk2 which to all intents and purposes is the same lens minus all the parts that have diminished in importance with the advent of autofocus and automatic metering.
AF is noisy if that bothers you, there are only 5 aperture blades so out of focus highlights look like pentagons but perhaps most crucially you don't have full time manual override ability as you would on the f1.4 and f1.2 models. Couple of points dropped for that.
I'd recommend the lens but at the same time think the advantages are sometimes overstated compared to the much more affordable Mk2. If you don't anticipate using it in manual very often, its probably a needless expense. But a very nice one at that 
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