Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro Lens Review

Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro Performance

At f/2.5 sharpness in the centre is already excellent, and the quality towards the edges approaches good levels. Stopping the lens down improves sharpness across the frame until f/5.6, where the clarity exceeds excellent levels from edge to edge.

MTF at 50mm

How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations are very well controlled, with fringing reaching half a pixel width towards the edges of the frame at f/8. This level is very low and shouldn't pose any issues, even for highly critical applications.

Chromatic Aberrations at 50mm

How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners of the frame is quite pronounced. At f/2.5 the corners are 2.94 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination isn't achieved until the lens is stopped down to f/5.6.

A virtually negligible level of distortion of 0.811% has been detected by Imatest. This low level of distortion should make this lens the ideal optic for critical applications, such as copy stand work.

The deeply recessed front element is very well protected from extraneous light from outside of the frame. Even when shooting directly into strong light sources, contrast holds up well and flare is a very rare occurrence.

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