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Great lens, but this isn't a bargain or anything. This is the going price for this lens. I got it at B&H (the only place to buy photo equipment) for the same price.

Don't forget your 3% bacon.

I own one and love the speed (f/1.8 ) for its price. However, it's NOT a "prime" lens. It has a plastic body, plastic mount and no ultrasonic focusing motor.

I stand corrected on "prime."

In film and photography, a prime lens is either a photographic lens whose focal length is fixed, as opposed to a zoom lens, or it is the primary lens in a combination lens system.

What would you primarily use a lens like this for?

Taking pictures, you rodeo cowboy.

trif3cta:
you can use this to take pics in just about any situation. you'd be surprised how quickly you can get used to not being able to zoom in and out.
I used one of these for quite a while before getting the 1.4 version. great great lens for the $$.

Good lens for the price.I paid $99 for mine last month. This price is excellent!

Thanks for the feedback, except for #6...

New to photography and just studying up on different lenses.

I have a disc camera that has treated me very well for a couple years now.

Excellent lens for the price. Great for portraits on a cropped sensor. Great for product shots also. It is also great for being able to take indoor shots without a flash.

Someone's done nice comparison of the 50mm 1.8 and 50mm 1.4 from Canon:

http://photo.net/equipment/canon/ef50/

Lower F number, 1.8 this case, means larger aperture opening. Which makes more light reaches the film/sensor. You can use faster shutter speed in low light place. This makes indoor photography fun and easy. Indoor photography includes studio portrait. Trade off? Depth of the field, meaning area of focus become shallow. Object in front of and behind the focus area become easily blurry. Good lens. Similar to this There is F1.2 50mm lens at about $1,500. Since that one is too expensive most of the hobby photographers use F1.4 50MM lens which usually goes around $350. Hope this helps.

This is a great lense. If you are looking for a more expensive 50mm, i'd probably skip the Canon 50 1.4 and get a Sigma 50 1.4 anyway.

Hey #10, number 9 explained it very well. One of the key things #9 said was "most DSLR's" have a 1.6 crop factor. The 1.6 crop factor is what you commonly find in entry level DSLRs. The more expensive DSLR (non-consumer, not so cheap cameras) have less crop factor, for example 1.3x. So, crop factor is dependent on the DSLR. In cameras with zero crop factor, this 50mm lens is considered a "normal" lens, meaning it doesn't give you any wide angle or telephoto feature. Good luck with your photography adventure. Mine started about 41 years ago (former B/W sports shooter).

In addition to the good info above, one of the added benefits of using a prime lens vs. a zoom is that you must do your "zooming" with your feet. This forces you to move around which should, in turn, produce more interesting shots, variety of angles, etc... It'll improve your photography quite a bit.

I love my 50mm 1.7 (Pentax). If you want to be a photographer you need a lens like this in your kit.
Stopped down a little these are usually super sharp too (in addition to having a deeper DOF).

#16 you might not be 100% correct....
The crop factor is due to the sensor size. If the sensor is 35mm full size, the crop factor is 1x.

So for a APS sized sensor, with a 1.6x crop factor (Canon sensor is smaller than Nikon and Pentax's APS size with 1.5x crop factor), the 50mm is equivalent to 80mm (35mm sensor size - original film size).

BTW, the depth of field of this 50mm (pseudo 80mm) is not the same as the 35mm sensor size camera. The depth of field is a lot shorter with smaller sensor.

BTW, the f1.4 lens is not always better than f1.8, it is usually a lot softer and very expensive. You should know the trade off before you buy a f1.2 and f1.4 prime lens.

For the zoom lens, it is like the all season tires, it is convenience, nice and already ready. A set of winter and a set of summer tires always better than the all seasons.

Economy goes down, but the lens price goes up. I paid mine 2 3 years ago for 70+ dollars. Now $89 can be consider a good deal....
The lens is must have fo DSL owner. Unless you can afford L lens - L lens is much much better ...