Recommend 50mm 1.4 for hospital pics?

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Harmless`

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Chris
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I would like to take some shots of my baby in an ICU at night. I've tries with a 50mm 1.8, but it hunts and cannot lock and my manual focusing is dreadful. I'm using a Canon 7D.
The lighting is poor as I want to shoot at night as its a bit quieter on the ward and not so obtrusive.
 
I can't comment on the 7D, but I have a 50mm f/1.4 with my 5D mk II and I've quite easily taken shots in cande-light before now.. wide open obviously and ISO turned up to 4000 or so, but the results are great. No problems focusing with the centre point either.

A.
 
Do you have someone that could assist you, for focus theres a neat little trick for focusing in the dark. Get one of those LED lights you use for keyholes and such, the type you attach to a keyring, place the light next to your subjects eye and then lock focus, remove the light and take the photo.
 
Although not entirely helpful at the present time, spend a week or so using your camera in manual mode. You'll be surprised how soon you pick it up and gain total control of the camera, rather than the camera having control over you. You will find an improvement in your photographic technique and of course, improvement in your photographs.

Congratulations on your new baby, my son spent 2 weeks in ICU as he was 3 weeks early and weighed just under 4lbs. Now he's a strapping great lad 30 years later :)
 
Thanks, I could try the led trick , but its hand held at 1/60-1/80 and I seem to be to sharp in the tape which is very distracting.

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I was wondering if the other lens would be better. Also it feels wierd to make too much fuss in an ICU, as even taking photos in there is rather conspicuous.

Unfortunately, the reason the pics are rather important is that this is his 4th week there and it's quite probable he won't be coming home.
 
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Personally I never noticed any difference in focus accuracy between the f/1.4 and the f/1.8 on a 40D, just that it was a bit quicker on the f/1.4 with it having (the worse of the two implementations of) USM. In fact I thought the f/1.4 was a poor use of the price difference between the two and ended up selling it after a few months.
That said I never had any of the focus hunting problems some people have with the f/1.8.

Have you considered a Speedlite with an AF assist beam? You can turn the flash output off in the menu on your camera but the AF assist beam will still work and you'd be expanding the capabilities of your equipment rather than swapping nearly like-for-like.
 
Thats a great suggestion. Will try that tonight if I get the chance. See if I'm steady enough.
 
1.4 should handle it fine - but I'd stop it down to 2.0 for the optimal performance. The accuracy difference between this and 1.8 is staggering

Other than that I would perhaps consider 85mm f/1.8 - that one is great to use wide open.
 
Harmless` said:
Unfortunately, the reason the pics are rather important is that this is his 4th week there and it's quite probable he won't be coming home.
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dont give up hope mate my twins were born at 26 weeks lucy was 3lb 2oz and jake was 2lb


jake had to have major surgery the next day and all in all he was in ITU and SCBU for 6 months, they are resilient little buggers and im sure he is in good hands
 
Well the problem is that after 1 day at home born at 36 weeks, he got a suspected bacterial meningitis, fitted and cardiac arrest. After all the treatments, he's still on ventilation after 4 weeks and they suspect a very rare metabolic condition, which if they are right, leads to a progressively fatal brain degeneration. So we hope thay are wrong as they suspect this only cos they can't find any other explanation. The tests take 6-8 weeks to come back and they are only right 50% of the time!
The waiting is awful and a positive result means that we have to worry about our 2 years old as it can be inherited!
 
Our prayers are with you and your family at this difficult time.
 
a tip i picked up from sone guy on youtube was when you're maual focusing half press the shutter button while twisting the focus on the lens and the AF points will flash in the view finder when it's found something to focus on

hopefully that makes sense to you. i know it's helped with my manual focusing alot

i hope your little one gets better soon
 
Don't give up hope. I'm so sorry to hear of this and do hope he's ok. There is a charity called nilmdts who provide pro photographers to come and take photos for you in this situation - i'll dig out details for you
 
Another tip is to look for contrast edges, so light to dark and focus on those. The 50mm f1.4 should be perfect for this situation. Another tip is to use a small torch just to get focus.
Hope the results come back favourably and your little one comes home soon.
 
thank you everyone for your suggestions and support, we just have to take it one day at a time.
 
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