Correct me if I'm wrong... ...

DrGed

DrGed

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Ged
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My relatively short as a member of this forum coincides with me trying my hand at portrait photography. I use a Canon EOS 1000D with the kit lens and I am beginning to form the opinion that this lens could be a bit limited.

Having gleaned knowledge from this forum, and other sites on the internet, I am now thinking of buying a Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II Lens. For me, this lens is both affordable (unlike a lot of other lenses) and seems to be highly suitable for portrait work.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've read the 50mm f1.8 II lens will be much sharper than the kit lens and it will be compatible with the EOS 1000D body.

Thanks,

Ged
 
You are correct, 50mm f1.8 will work well with your camera body. In terms of sharpness, the 50mm f1.8 isn't very sharp at f1.8, but at same aperture as your current lens (f5.6 or smaller) it will be much sharper.
 
The 50mm f1.8 will work with your 1000D.
Wide open it is ok but it gets sharp at around f2-f2.8 and makes a nice portrait lens on a crop body with decent background blur.
 
If it only gets sharper at smaller apertures, is there any benefit in getting a f/1.8? Or would you be better off with a slower one to begin with? Or would the slower one (eg f/2.8) get a sweet spot at a smaller aperture?
 
omens said:
Or would the slower one (eg f/2.8) get a sweet spot at a smaller aperture?
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This ^ 50mm f1.4 is very sharp at f2.8, 50mm f1.8 has room to improve at f2.8, is sharper at f4.

Unless it's a very very cheap prime vs an expensive L lens. Compare the 50mm f1.8 II to 24-105mm f4L, I found the L lens to be sharper. But at 8 times the price and the weight of it, it better be!
 
Thanks for the replies everyone! :)

One factor that is very important for me... ...

50mm f1.8 approx cost £85
50mm f1.4 approx cost £250

I'm just looking make a significant improvement on the kit lens I'm currently using. Surely the 50mm f1.8 will achieve this?
 
DrGed said:
I'm just looking make a significant improvement on the kit lens I'm currently using. Surely the 50mm f1.8 will achieve this?
Click to expand...

Simple answer is yes it will.

And you don't need 1.8 for portraits but using less than the 5.6 available on your kit lens is a real advantage.
 
Thanks, Chris.

The main area of improvement I'm looking for is sharpness for portraits and it seems the 50mm f1.8 will achieve this without spending (for me) too much money.
 
Arnt all lens sharper when not wide open and have a sweet spot.. not just the Nifty50..

You will find an amazing amount of difference with the 50m prime.. at all apertures....
 
DrGed said:
Thanks, Chris.

The main area of improvement I'm looking for is sharpness for portraits and it seems the 50mm f1.8 will achieve this without spending (for me) too much money.
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Yes, a 50/1.8 will ultimately be sharper, but the IS version of Canon's kit zoom is not at all bad. Don't expect a night and day difference at say f/8.

The major benefit of primes is their low f/number capability for low light shooting, and shallow depth-of-field. It's for the latter reason that the 50/1.8 is recommended for portraits.
 
omens said:
If it only gets sharper at smaller apertures, is there any benefit in getting a f/1.8? Or would you be better off with a slower one to begin with? Or would the slower one (eg f/2.8) get a sweet spot at a smaller aperture?
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Yes.... because most lenses are softer when wide open, how soft depends on the lens itself. For example the 50mm f1.4 will probably be softer wide open but not as soft as the 50mm f1.8 wide open (if that makes sense?).

Most lenses have a sweetspot from f8-f11 but again, this will vary. In the main you could be talking about very small differences and some may not be noticable depending on what you're shooting.

In the OP's case, the 50mm f1.8 *should* give better IQ than the kit lens but it might not be a night/day difference. What the 50mm lens will offer is nicer bokeh/background blur/subject isolation than the kit lens and more flexibility in low light situations.

Based on my own experience with the "nifty fifty", the IQ was better than my Sigma 18mm-200mm but the AF is a little slow/noisy and can be a little hit & miss. Also, on a crop body 50mm can be a little on the long side but again that would depend on what it's being used for.

Saved my bacon at a "baby sensory" (happy clappy baby development ype thing) meeting where I couldn't really use a flash, they closed the curtains and the ambient light was dire........ stuck my 50mm on and f3.2 did a decent job at getting me a shutter speed where the rugrats weren't too blurry :lol:
 
omens said:
If it only gets sharper at smaller apertures, is there any benefit in getting a f/1.8? Or would you be better off with a slower one to begin with? Or would the slower one (eg f/2.8) get a sweet spot at a smaller aperture?
Click to expand...

Think of it this way, all lenses are soft wide open and most sharpen as you stop it down a bit. So if you start at 1.8 and stop it down to 2.2 to get it sharp you are better off than if you had started at 2.2 and stopped it down the same amount. Better for back ground blur and so on. So a faster lens will almost always win out over a slower one when everything else is equal in comparison.
 
This is a in issue that I've wondered about, too. There seems to be an unspoken rule of never shooting 'wide open' yet, on the other hand, we drool over 'fast primes'.

Is there a presumption that I should only really be using my fast-prime wide-open when:-

1. Lighting is shonky and it's impressive light-gathering ability is needed (sharpness being a secondary consideration here?)

2. I want to creatively use a large aperture, the usual reason being to separate my subject from the surroundings (and, again, I accept the consequences this has on image sharpness?)

Am I understanding this correctly?
Thanks to the OP for raising this.
Mike.
 
You firstly need to decide for yourself what the effects on sharpness actually are. This will changes from lens to lens, camera to camera. If you are happy with the results of the wide open lens that is all that matters.
 
Bicko said:
This is a in issue that I've wondered about, too. There seems to be an unspoken rule of never shooting 'wide open' yet, on the other hand, we drool over 'fast primes'.
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Somehow this thread has tuned into tosh


I have a lot of primes.. all are sharp wide open.. I ahve to use wide open mostly.. they are sharp


I ahve a 135 f2 lens.. I ahve the 70-200 canon l lens mkII .. the 135m at f2 is as sharp as anyhting on the 1800 quid zoom


Bicko said:
Am I understanding this correctly?
Click to expand...

No

Primes are sharp wide open
Primes are sharper up a stop or more. (although i dont notice too much with mine)

people wiht kit lens shooting f5.6 or f8 or wahetever are reporting loverly sharp pictures and asking why get a prime..

an unspoken rule of never shooting 'wide open' ??? NO! :)
 
No one said to never shoot wide open!

I shoot my 35mm and 85mm primes wide open all the time because they are sharp wide open. The 50mm is quite soft wide open, for the price, it's expected to be honest.
 
It's a question of what's an acceptable level of sharpness for you?

I've recently just bought a 50mm Mk2 f/1.8 and was pretty disappointed with the results at f/1.8... then I remembered that it was a 75 quid lens and stopped grumbling. At f/2.0 and f/2.8 it's pretty sharp - certainly enough so that I'm happy with it and it makes a good "street lens".

As someone else has said the 18-55mm IS is pretty sharp too... I was surprised after swapping my 1000d and 18-55 for a 60d and 18-55IS... quite a noticeable difference.
 
It is all very minor gains anyway isn't it as the 18-55 is not that bad and only becomes a problem when looking at them very critically with this test and that test. Really depends if the minor gains are worth it. Again, you could get a some more minor gains by buying a £1,000 lens which must be worth it to loads of people who buy them?

However, a kit 18-55 is not very good at f1.8 is it :)
 
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Bicko said:
This is a in issue that I've wondered about, too. There seems to be an unspoken rule of never shooting 'wide open' yet, on the other hand, we drool over 'fast primes'.

Is there a presumption that I should only really be using my fast-prime wide-open when:-

1. Lighting is shonky and it's impressive light-gathering ability is needed (sharpness being a secondary consideration here?)

2. I want to creatively use a large aperture, the usual reason being to separate my subject from the surroundings (and, again, I accept the consequences this has on image sharpness?)

Am I understanding this correctly?
Thanks to the OP for raising this.
Mike.
Click to expand...

I would agree with this. You've basically said "only use the wide apertures when needed or wanted." And this is always the case. For me, aperture is the first thing I care about because it is the primary setting that determines what the image will look like...it is then balanced against SS and ISO when light is a problem and I give the priority to SS most of the time.

The reason most love fast primes is that they can do some things other lenses simply can't, and being at f/1.4 instead of f/4 is 3 stops of light. That could mean being at ISO 800 instead of 6400 or 1/100 instead of 1/12. But once you get a lens to it's "sweet spot" it doesn't really get any sharper stopped down further (it can actually get worse) and the difference between sharp and sharp (two different lenses at their sweet spot) is generally pretty negligible.

Often people desire a wide prime for the shallow DOF. But IMO, that's because they don't really understand how focal length and subject distance also affect DOF (and they affect DOF more significantly than aperture does).
 
If people are interested in how the sharpness of their lenses varies with aperture then they should check out the Lens/Camera Information Tool on Reikans' website - LINK. They've been collating customer info for some time.

And, for those who suggest that zooms need to be stopped down a lot for maximum sharpness, here's the results for my 10-22

10-22%20aperture%20variation.jpg
 
50mm 1.8 will be a big improvement. Superb for lower light situations and nice and light too.
 
That site looks interesting, Frank. It is very limited just now but I hope it expands in the future.

Dave
 
If you've not already seen it have a look at the Flickr group for the 50mm f1.8, it should give you an idea what this lens is capable of. http://www.flickr.com/groups/ef_50_18ii/

I find 50mm (on a crop camera,) to be too short when taking tight headshots. Being that close can distort the features of your models making their nose and forehead look much larger. Take a couple of steps back and it's fine.
 
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