Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM Focus and Sound Comparison with the Old ‘Nifty Fifty’

This week Canon announced its new 50mm f/1.8 STM, a followup to the popular and cheap “Nifty Fifty” 50mm f/1.8 II. Aside from a better build quality and a metal mount, the new lens also features Stepping Motor (STM) technology for
smooth and silent autofocusing.

If you’d like to see how the focusing sound and smoothness compares between the new lens and its predecessor, check out the comparison video above.

The 1.5-minute clip was published today by Latvian gadget site CTRL.lv, which was invited to a Canon event to play with pre-production copies of the new 50mm f/1.8 STM.

“The biggest difference is in the focusing motor, and it really is much smoother and quieter, like STM should be,” the site writes. “It doesn’t sound like a broken printer anymore, so it’s much better for videos now.”

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