[Rondec]

Nikon, Canon and Sony all have 135 format cameras where the 50 is a standard lens.

Personally, on APS-C, I would prefer to shoot 35-40 mm and 70 mm and not bother with the 50mm lens. As others have said, there are millions of 50mm lenses out there. If you are looking for something for portraiture, then a manual focus lens would work fine -- maybe look at one of the 'A' 50's...

[GhoSStrider]

The EF50/1.8 is not a shoddy lens by any optical measure. It's a derivative of the Zeiss Biotar and is therefore very sharp despite having a simple optical scheme. Downsides would be ugly bokeh, but I get that sometimes with the 50/1.7 so I'm guessing that the Pentax and Canon lenses are similar but not identical.

Agreed on all counts. I have the M 50mm f1.7 and it compares very similarly to the EF 50mm f1.8, including funky bokeh on both lenses. Both are great value lenses. There's a lot of performance for not a lot of price.

[yusuf]

Actually this is very true for Canon 85mm/1.8 too which is very reasonably priced and pretty good too. I am not putting it into the same league as FA77mm or Pentax FA85mm, but it definitely compares well against other MF 85mm overprices options we have.

[paperbag846]

other MF 85mm overprices options we have.

That's just our reliance on rarity in the used market.

Pentax needs these cheap alternatives... they had them not 10 years ago. The used market was once a good place to score really good deals, but apparently the cat is out of the bag. I came late to the game having read about all this wonderful glass, but all the shops around me have told me that in the past few years (i'm lookin at you, k10d!) people started snapping up all the old pentax glass... sometimes at very high prices. It's some people's willingness to pay way more than an item's value that drives the prices up like this... and some sort of autofocus new barometer would really help. No one would buy an M 85 1.8 for 300 when the autofocus lens would cost 350.

[GhoSStrider]

Actually this is very true for Canon 85mm/1.8 too

Interestingly, the EF 85mm f1.8 is a lens I was never enamored with in my Canon days. It was certainly no slouch, but it wasn't really all that "special." It had some problems like PF wide open, too. Nothing too bad, but it was there.

I would go for the EF 100mm f2.0 any day of the week. It was a knock out, and not that much more expensive than the 85mm f1.8. Interestingly, it's somewhat of a sleeper in Canon-land. The 85mm f1.8 gets all the press. Almost everyone I've met that's owned or used a 100mm f2, though, loves it.

[MrA]

I use a Sigma 30/1.4 as my standard lens - it's good but far from perfect, and costs £400 too, but if pentax released an equivalent I'd trade up in a heartbeat!

[lesmore49]

I have the 50mm DA F 1.4...on my K10D and KM bodies it is the equivalent of a fast portrait lens (35mm equivalent is 70-75mm).

It's not useless, very useful for inside shots and later evening dusk shots, outside.