Great price for a great lens!

I am not a professional photographer, and I know very little about lenses. This lens was recommended to me before I began learning about photography, so I bought it to have more flexibility in learning about aperture settings, at the same time as learning about handling manual settings on my new Rebel. It was much less expensive than some of my other options, but I had read that it was a good quality and that was all the encouragement I needed.

I have ended up keeping this lens on my camera most of the time. As I've learned what I'm doing, I've appreciated the quality of photos that come from using this lens, and I've ended up recommending it to friends for their Rebels as well. I love the background blur it gives in portrait shots, although I do find I have to be very careful not to turn the aperture below 2.5 or I end up with the whole picture blurry (which could just be due to my personal camera shake, I don't know).

I also like the focus, it's fast! I don't have lots of time to play with the focus, as I mostly photograph moving children, so need it to work reliably, and it does just that.

If I need to take close-proximity indoor shots, I do have to switch because I end up having to stand too far away to get good, wide-angle pictures or it has trouble focusing, so I do have to keep another lens on hand for those times.