Absolute Bargain!

Quite simply the best value for money Canon prime lens you can buy!
Amazing quality photos in low light conditions - great for portraits.
As countless others have noted, the only negative is the cheap build quality, but then any lens needs to be cared for! Used with care produces great results, full stop.

Buyer Beware!

I'm afraid I'm breaking my own rule about 'reviews that don't review the product', but this is a warning for potential buyers - check out the P&P rates. At time of writing, the various suppliers charge anything between £4.50 and £10 (YES - ten pounds!) for postage and packing - on top of the product price!! How on earth do they justify that? I guess the answer is that they don't, they just hope they can get away with ripping you off! Caveat Emptor, indeed.
I've given 4 stars in order not to 'bring down the product'. It may be fine; I'll never know...

Very fragile

I have owned one of these for 18 months. In that time it has broken twice, on both occasions the lens was mounted on the camera and reasonably protected, and I am anything but an action photographer. After the most recent failure Nikon are quoting £130 to fix it, so I think I'm going to call it a day on this particular model. When it was working the image quality was good enough; that is to say it had a number of limitations (fairly widely reviewed) but in most cases images can be fixed by post processing by DX-Pro or similar. The VR kind-of-works, as someone said it's a good way of getting images of blurred sportsmen running across razor sharp grass. It is a good price mind, and perhaps I have been unlucky but it is very flimsy.

A must have to protect your lens

I bought this to prevent scratches etc to my lens.

For just a little money, your lens surface is protected.
This filter also prevents haze and UV rays.
Supplied in a handy protective plastic box.

Made by Tiffen, who is a very well established camera firm.

This filter which has a 52mm thread, screws nicely into my canon 50mm lens and tamron 55-200mm zoom lens.

How much to you value your expensive lens?

Buy one of these filters today.

Also prevents dust getting onto your lens glass, saving you time cleaning it! These uv filters are a must filter.......

Will save you money in the long term!!!!!!!!!!

Lake Como

So good I need to buy another one.......!
does what is says on the box but don't try one handed turnaround on lense otherwise its goodbye and another trip to Amazon!
If you are in Managgio, Lake Como there is one at the bottom of the small harbour just waiting rescue - if you can get it then its yours!

simple yet effective

Bought this for my 450D and it does exactly what its supposed to. Not taken any pics where its UV filtering propeties will come in useful yet, but its primary job at the moment is to protect the len.

Its got threads on its outer aspect to allow the attachment of further filters or hoods if you want.

At £8 its a bargain, its for sale in Tottenham Court Road at £30!!! What a rip off!

G9 lens adapter, adapter

I have one of these, required if the Wide angle lens adapter Canon Wide Conversion Lens WC-DC58B for PowerShot G7 & G9 - 0.75 x (27mm in 35mm format) which I also have is to be used (also the telephoto adapter Canon Lens Conversion Adapter LA-DC58H for PowerShot G7 & G9 which I do not have). All it does is cover the G9's lens as extended when switched on so the wide angle or telephoto lens adapters themselves can be fitted. A word of timely guidance: to fit this first REMOVE the black plastic serated circle found on the camera around the lens and removed by pushing the black button found on the front of the camera at the lower right (when facing), push button and while holding it twist the black serated plastic circular surround one eighth turn anti-clockwise, gently lift off and KEEP IT SAFE! It is very easy to lose (not least being black in a black camera or lens bag) Notice the small white dot? Opposite the black button? That goes at 3'o'clock (and only there) to slot back in to its groove followed by an eighth turn clockwise. All as when facing the front of the camera. It's easy enough and a matter of a second, when you know all this! Anthony

Perfect, but....

This is a must have for any nikon fetesh. The 18-200 gives you the power of being everywhere and the colors are great at 18 mm.

The weight is not a problem, for the first 100 pictures on day, but it can be hard to keep the 550g + body for a whole day.

the f/4 is not a problem, but on 200mm the f/5.6 starts to"steal" the colorness of the fantastic pictures that the 18mm is capaple of.

buy it and you dont need anotner one...

Great budget starter lens for the amatuer/hobbyist

I bought this lens about eight months ago for my Canon 350D. If like me you bought the kit that comes bundled with the 18-55mm lens you'll notice there is a big gap when it comes to zoom/telephoto shots, this is a great budget tele-photo zoom lens that does what it says on the tin, and fills the gap nicely.

I am an amateur photographer at best and still learning, but after using the lens for a while I was disappointed to learn that the f stop values really do make a big difference - the widest aperture you will be able to set this lens to is 4.0 at 75mm and only 5.6 at 300mm, if your really serious you need a fast lens like f/2.8, and definitely with IS (image stabilisation) - the lens is not that heavy (for me), but during a long shoot it starts to feel like a cannon (pardon the pun), the lens really protrudes out at towards the 300mm end, and if you hold the camera pointing straight down, expect lens creep. Add an external flash onto the hot shoe and expect a real workout!

My wife complains its way too heavy - especially with a speedlite mounted on top, just carry a tripod if you expect to be on a long shoot, or mount the external flash on a tripod (you'll need something like a speedlite wireless remote for this, expensive, but its tiny and weighs next to nothing and gets the speedlite off the camera).

Having said all that, I have got some really great shots with this, and overall for the price you pay for this lens it's a real good value for money. If I'm going to a function, like a party within a hall, I would almost always use this lens (not to good for mid range shots - 50mm better for this, which is why I carry another camera to save swapping lenses about), great for candid photography where you can position yourself at the other side of the hall and take shots without distracting or letting your subjects know they are being shot - just have a strong arm, and good light conditions/flash. For portrait shots, and shots where you slow the shutter speed use a tripod, or you get too much blur/softness. If you also intend to pan the shot, a tripod with a panning handle is also essential.

The other thing you need to bear in mind is the multiplication factor (of the focal length) of your camera. Unless your lucky enough to have a camera with the same focal length as a 35mm film camera, i.e. a full 35mm frame size, the camera may effectively crop the image to fit on the film sensor - the 350D has a factor of x1.6, this means this lens is effectively a 120mm - 480mm lens (!) This is great on the tele-photo side, you get more magnification than you pay for, but not so good for wide angle or down at the 75mm end, where you've actually got 120mm. (Because of this factor, if you want a wide-angle lens and you have a 350/400D then you'd be better off going for ultra wide 14mm).

Bottom line, it's a heavy lens, and no IS, but for the price of the lens very good value for money! I haven't regretted buying this, and unless you're a really serious photographer, and shoot within the limits of this lens you wont either.

The best filter I even saw

I am working in the lasers domain so I had chance to see many very expensive optical components.

This filter has such high quality anti-reflection coating that when I opened the box and I have taken the filter in hand my first impression was that the filter is missing from the holder so I touched it with the finger to check. Impressive indeed. No absorbtion and it will protect your lens.
I think that no lens shoud come without a filter to protect it, particularly the pro ones.

Fits very well on an Zuiko lens used in conjunction with an Olympus E-510.

Reccomended.

Sharp with great colours

I've had mine for 8 years and it delivers sharp pictures with great colours every time. If I could only own one lens, this would be it.

Does what you need

No worries, no fuss hood fits straight onto the lens with no drama, pictures look fine with no flare issues

Reviews

I do not know how Amazon allow this sort of thing to happen but at least half of these reviews relate to lenses other than the one featured.

Sceptical no more!

I must admit that I bought these very much on a 'at this price I'm prepared to take a chance' approach. The optical principle is sound - you push the lens away from the camera and it allows you to focus a lot closer.

I was highly dubious about what the actual result would be. Astonishingly enough, I needn't have been! It does exactly what it says on the tin, and using my bog-standard 18-55 Canon lens I've focussed about 20-30mm away from the face of the lens.

You lose the autofocus and some of the other automatic bells and whistles, but it's not really an issue with such close work. Just whack it into Av mode and you're away.

Couple of caveats, but it's nothing to do with this product - just macro stuff in general. You're working very close and dealing with not a lot of light - you really need to use a tripod. Also you're dealing with the world's shallowest depth of field - it has to be seen to be believed!

So yes, these things really do work and if you don't want to shell out on a 'proper' macro lens then this is a perfectly viable alternative for infrequent use. A worthy addition to anyone's kit bag.

G9 Wide angle lens adapter

Wouldn't be without it. Granted when in use I may as well have my 400D as regards bulk, but that can't be taken to bits and fit in my pocket, not ever. I view this item as a must have for the G9, couldn't live G9 life without it. REQUIRES also Canon Lens Conversion Adapter LA-DC58H for PowerShot G7 & G9- won't fit without it, but can (must) also be used for the telephoto adapter. Finally, this is a wide-angle lens ADAPTER, NOT an actual lens. You get the wide angle effect (speaking in terms of compact cameras), without the internal glass of a"real" lens. So, it's less expensive, but as far as I am concerned it works just fine. Anthony

Quality Canon lens

I bought this lens to replace the lens supplied with my brand new Canon EOS 400D camera kit. I use this lens as my standard one and have just put the supplied lens kit away in my camera bag( as an emergency replacement only).
Lens is very light and is very good quality built. Takes excellent pics and is value for money.I have recenly took some close up shots on holiday and the quality was fab. I paid £66 in June 2008. The best price i could find around at the time (believe me i did a lot of research on the internet and my Digital Photo mag.)

As a standard Canon lens you can't go far wrong!

I've also took some fab close up potrait shots with this lens. The quality was excellent. This lens is well worth the money. Supplied with a lens cover.