Danny M
I bought the canon 50mm 1.4 and while it takes nice pictures and has a fast focus it miss focus too many times for me to be happy with. I have a canon 6d and have a little above moderate knowledge on photography and I know my camera very well. I always focus on the eyes and yes even with the center focus and the canon 50mm 1.4 sometimes does not focus accurately wide open and the center is kind of soft with noticeable light fall off in the corners and lens distortion which the last two are not a big problem because I shoot raw and easily fixed in lightroom . Now the canon 50mm 1.4 I bought brand new in amazon some time ago and take very special care with because I know the USM motor is very sensitive and gets damaged with any little bump and if you twist to hard on a filter you can damage as well . So I protect it with a lens hood and a B&W (007m) UV filter . So thats my background and with that being said I still like the lens and its great for low light. Now that lens left me with wanting something better something that did not make me lose my mind when I got the perfect picture with the perfect natural light of my beautiful 4 year old daughter and the autofocus did not focus properly and now the perfect light is gone my daughter wont sit still now ect I know some of you share my frustration. I recently bought the 50mm macro 2.5 strictly on the review of Ken Rockwells site and was he right . This lens is excellent for portraits and close up photography ! Its phenomenal blows the 50mm 1.4 right out of the water the auto focus is accurate wide open and the eyes are tact sharp and also everything else thats in focus. Now I will add the autofocus is a little slow and the depth of field is very shallow so you have to be careful as well but its extremely accurate. There are no chromatic arbitration no lens flare . Now Im basing this on that I just got the 50mm macro 2.5 on thursday and shot with it on saturday for an early mothers day BBQ I did with all the family and today Im looking at all the pictures and processing them and they look great . No need for a lens hood on this one because the way its made the lens element its pretty deep in the housing. I strongly recommend the 50mm macro 2.5 vs this one I hope this helps I know it would have helped me when I was shopping for a reliable 50mm .