Canon Cameras US 6310B002 EF 40mm f/2.8 STM Lens - Fixed Black

The first, obvious, aspect of this lens is its tiny size. You might wonder what the point is in pairing a tiny lens with a large heavy dSLR (I have it on the 7D), but it's great. The point isn't to make the package lighter or even, really, smaller. Rather it makes the camera _flatter_. On my 7D, this lens hardly extends out from under the viewfinder/flash "hump" on the top or the grip on the right. That moves the camera from an awkward 3D object toward something with the profile of a lumpy, dense book. Much easier to place in a standard shoulder bag or backpack. Having this lens sitting on your camera makes it that much more likely that you'll throw it in your bag when you go out (and then have it on you when you see that great thing you want to photograph). It isn't going to make a big dSLR portable, but it will make it _possible_ to take it with you many times when you otherwise couldn't.So, if it's going to be sitting on your camera, how good is it? Will you regret that it was the only lens you had with you when you went out? As a prime lens, you obviously won't be able to zoom, but don't forget that modern dSLRs have a lot of resolution to burn in cropping. 40mm is a decent all around lens. On crop sensors (Rebels, 60D, 7D, etc.) it acts as a slightly wide portrait lens or a slightly zoomed in standard (acting about like a 64mm) and on full frame cameras it will give you a nice slightly wide standard. Some people have expressed doubt about the utility on crop sensors, but I think it's pretty good. It's a good length for head and shoulder portraits at comfortable distances and while you won't capture a full room with it, it is wide enough that you can get two or three people in frame if you have some room to back up. You'll find it a bit tight as a walk around lens if you like to take pictures of large features on buildings on the same side of the street as you (like stairs or doorways), but it is a great length for capturing smaller details while still being wide enough to be useful at capturing a more distant vista across the street (just don't count on showing a full building). In short, a compromise, but a decent one.At f 2.8 you won't be taking pictures in the dark without high ISO, but it is entirely useable indoors at night, and if you are capturing a close portrait it will blur the background nicely, but there is no competing with a 1.4 or even 1.8. The better news is that it is quite sharp all the way open at 2.8. Certainly sharp enough that you won't notice any problems unless you really go hunting for them. Any trade-offs made to make it so small are less than those needed to make zoom lens. If you are used to a kit zoom, you will find this incredibly sharp. Similarly the quality of the background blur is a decided step up from entry level. Optically, you won't find anything to fault unless you go looking for it.Likewise, the build quality is great for the price. With so little length there isn't much room for flex. The focus ring is small, but solid, and it turns easily without making any rubbing sound. The STM motor is quiet, but definitely not silent. It's similar to a USM motor, but with more of a "zip" sound rather than the stuttering beeping slipping sound of USM. It is fast enough that, again, you won't notice. If you are taking video and you move the focus ring very, very, slowly, it will move silently or with just an occasional click, but if you turn it quickly, it will produce a zip that will be audible with the internal mic.Little details: The aperture adjusts slowly when in video mode on my camera, making it silent (one of my other lenses, snaps between aperture settings with an audible click) and presumably less sudden in lighting transition. Full time manual focus is a little strange due to focus by wire. If you have your camera controls set up in the default fashion, you can't just grab the ring at any time and have the lens move, you have to engage focusing first. So, for instance, if you push the shutter half way and allow it to lock focus in one shot mode, you can then move the focus while you keep the shutter pressed. In other words it will work great for post-autofocus adjustments, but not for pre-focusing to start the autofocus from a reasonable point. This is mostly frustrating in video where in order to manually adjust your focus, you will need to switch to manual mode, making it hard to pre-focus with autofocus, then manual focus while recording without hitting the switch (and probably moving the camera in the process). That said, you can fix this (at least on the 7D) by changing the half-pressed shutter to something like "metering start" instead of "AF start" and using the back AF-on button to focus. In that mode, manual focus works truly full time. To take advantage of this, I have one of my Custom User Mode settings set up for video, including that control change so that video mode allows constant focus override while normal picture taking is unaffected.Bottom line: At a price that makes it one of the cheapest Canon lenses available, this provides an interesting choice against the cheapest lens, the 50mm 1.8. With this lens you get a similar, but slightly wider, lens with somewhat better optical quality, vastly better fit, finish, and durability, much better background blur quality (though less quantity), and even better portability (almost flat package and no fear of snapping off that plastic mount putting this in a bag). What you lose is that wide open 1.8. Personally this makes the 40mm the winner for the spot of "default low cost lens that sits on my camera." For a wide open lens, I'll save for one of the 1.4s instead.

Before going into the details of my review, I'd like to start off by saying...if you have the money on hand, you should immediately buy this lens. I am extremely pleased so far - this is a lightweight, yet solidly built, and extremely affordable performer. While two hundred bucks doesn't seem "affordable" at first, it delivers very solid results that you could expect from lenses that cost several times as much.To give some background: I do shoot professionally, but got this lens mostly for personal use - I simply prefer the versatility of a zoom lens for professional work, although seeing the impressive results I might incorporate it for future assignments. I currently own two bodies, a 5D Mark II and a 7D. While my main lenses are high-end (the 24-105L, 70-200L 2.8 IS II, and 100mm Macro), since I started off with a Rebel series body I also am familiar with a lot of the cheaper lenses Canon sells, including the 50mm f/1.8. I really liked the 50 f/1.8 because of its convenient size - but by comparison to this lens, it now seems big!I love this 40mm f/2.8 lens on both of my bodies, but find its focal range to be much more useful on a full-frame than crop-sensor body. Keep in mind that if you have a crop body, the effective focal length of this lens comes out to 64mm! Even at that length, you can still get impressive shots with beautiful bokeh, but in my experience 64mm was more inconvenient to work with than 40mm. I'd still recommend it for APS-C bodies though, because the image quality thus far has been very impressive.PROS* Very small lens, which allows for much more inconspicuous shooting if you want to blend into the background. This lens is tiny! Yes, mounted on a battery-gripped SLR you still stand out a bit, but not nearly as much as you do with most other lenses* Very light - this is much more portable than any other lens I own. You could even carry it in a pocket.* Great image quality. I really am impressed at the results based on the low price point* Impressive build quality. This lens might be inexpensive, but it doesn't feel cheap.CONS* Hard to manually adjust focus. This is my only major gripe with this lens. It is doable, but it definitely takes getting used to. This is especially pronounced if you have big hands. That being said, I think the convenience of the small lens size makes up for this minor inconvenience.* Yes, as some other reviewers have already mentioned, there is some vignetting wide open. This doesn't bother me too much as I find the vignetting to be acceptable, but some others might not like it even if it can be corrected in post-processing - it depends on personal preferenceCONCLUSIONSI will try to upload photos demonstrating this lens' ability in the next few weeks; in the meantime, some people have already added to the gallery here, and undoubtedly many pictures will start appearing on Flickr.Some people will inevitably find the need to ask why I gave the lens 5 stars if there are some cons. For the price I paid for this lens, I am very happy with my results, and think the cons are outweighed by the pros. The size and weight of this lens are remarkable, and its optical performance is great for the price. Sure, you could compare this lens to much more expensive ones and find more shortcomings, but I think for most people's use, this lens is a terrific buy. The other reviewers thus far also seem to be happy with their purchase, which I think is a testament to the performance of this lens. I highly recommend you go for it!