Over the weekend we made some shots, where a macro lens would have been appropriate. We used our "fantastic plastic" 50mm f1.8 Canon lens. This lens has a fantastic value for the $109 (CAD) we paid for it. Nevertheless, it has one real disadvantage, at least the piece we got: it is not sharp when wide open. This can be clearly seen on uncropped pictures and becomes annoying if you want to crop the picture to show details.

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Another lens I always wanted to get is the Canon 50mm f1.8 prime lense so we can do better indoor shots or low light shots without using the crappy internal flash of the 10D. This lens is really cheap, but gives good and crisp results. The shot below was taken with just our kitchen light on, ISO100, free hand. The other shots on Flickr with that lens were ISO400 but still free hand.