The holiday season is a very common time for people to get new DSLRs, and the 50mm f/1.8 is often the first new lens purchase to go with it. It’s light, it’s small, it’s cheap, it’s fast, and apparently it might also be fake. According to Canon, the company has seen an uptick in the number of fake 50mm f/1.8 II lenses coming into its service centers.
To clarify, these aren’t the 50mm f/1.8 clone lenses that are out there from companies like Yongnuo, but rather true counterfeit lenses labeled with fraudulent Canon branding and trademarks. The graphic above shows the difference in the brand marks that can be used to identify a fake lens.
Canon has been at the forefront of the fight against counterfeit gear for some time now and have even put together a pretty wide collection of resources to help identify faked gear.
The holiday season is a very common time for people to get new DSLRs, and the 50mm f/1.8 is often the first new lens purchase to go with it. It’s light, it’s small, it’s cheap, it’s fast, and apparently it might also be fake. According to Canon, the company has seen an uptick in the number of fake 50mm f/1.8 II lenses coming into its service centers.
To clarify, these aren’t the 50mm f/1.8 clone lenses that are out there from companies like Yongnuo, but rather true counterfeit lenses labeled with fraudulent Canon branding and trademarks. The graphic above shows the difference in the brand marks that can be used to identify a fake lens.
Canon has been at the forefront of the fight against counterfeit gear for some time now and have even put together a pretty wide collection of resources to help identify faked gear.
So, if you’re buying a used 50mm f/1.8 II or getting one from an online retailer with which you’re not totally familiar, be sure to check things out to be safe.
You can read the full service advisory on the Canon support site.