which to buy.

snigg

snigg

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looking o buy a Canon 50mm, should I save and buy the better built 1.4 as reading the reviews the 1.8 is very badly built and comes with a good sprinkling of dust as standard, it seems?

Anyone here bought the 1.8 and wish they never.
 
Not sure the 1.8 is badly built, just that lesser materials are used so will probably not last as long if not treated gently.

The bad sides for me were that there are only 5 aperture blades (causing pentagon bokeh) and that it was a 50 which turned out too long for me on a crop sensor camera.
 
I own a 20 year old canon 50mm 1.8 and It's been really looked after and passed down from my dad. I think it really works a treat!

But if you're really going for that BOKEH effect save up a little more and go for the 1.4, That's the lens personally I'd save up and buy...
 
snigg said:
looking o buy a Canon 50mm, should I save and buy the better built 1.4 as reading the reviews the 1.8 is very badly built and comes with a good sprinkling of dust as standard, it seems?

Anyone here bought the 1.8 and wish they never.
Click to expand...

What you should buy is the Sigma 50mm f1.4.
 
The MkII 50 1.8 is a good lens let down by it's materials and build quality. The 20 year old will be the MkI with a metal mount instead of plastic and because of the better materials it normally sells for double the price of the MKII.

I got a MkII 1.8 and ended up hardly using it as I had to stop it down so much to get a very good photo that I lost all the benefit of the wide aperture. I've since bought a 50 f1.4 and it is superb compared to the f1.8. It's sharp wide open and super sharp at f2.8. The difference for me was like light and dark and I wish I'd gone for the f1.4 first.
 
I had the 50mm 1.8 and for the money its a great lens imo although noisy and slow to focus. I wanted to upgrade to a 1.4 and after looking at many reviews decided on the Sigma as it almost always had the edge over the Canon. I managed to pick mine up used for £250 and i love it, never used the canon 1.4 but from my experience i would definitely recommend the Sigma.

If you can afford the extra go for either of the 1.4s, mine is far superior build quality and image quality over the 1.8

If you did get the 1.8 first, you will probably end up getting the 1.4 eventually anyway, so getting a 1.4 will save you time and money in the long run.
 
cheers Pwal1 for that info and pics, think I will go for the f1.4.
 
I would agree with ernesto, only regret was that the focal length was too long on crop. I'm glad I learned that on the cheap 50mm f1.8 than the more expensive f1.4
 
I think most of what can be said about the Canon 50mm lenses has been said;

50mm f/1.8 II Toytown plastic appearance. No full time manual focus, Non-USM & noisy focus. Surprisingly optically very sharp. Cheap to look at but then again cheap to buy!

50mm f/1.4 Much better build quality with full time manual focus. Micro USM not ring USM and once again is noisy when focussing. Optically very sharp and of course a little faster but prone to autofocus failure? Better background blur.

50mm f/1.2L Built like a tank, is a little bit faster still, has the all-important red ring around the lens barrel (if that might be important) but larger, heavier and much more expensive! A little faster again and the smoothest background blur of them all as you would expect when wide open but shockingly when stopped down not much sharper than the two lenses above it :gag:

50mm f/1.4 would be my choice as the middle ground...I have to say that as I have just paid the standard repair charge to Canon of £104 to get the autofocus fixed and need to warrant the outlay!

There is also the 50mm f/2.5 Macro which goes down to half-lifesize but like the 1.8 above doesn't have USM or full time manual focus and the lens barrel extends while focussing.

I for one am still waiting for Canon to release a great 50mm lens that ticks all the boxes but looking at the trending on recent lenses am worried that if/when they do it might be priced out of reach of many of us...:cuckoo:

Good luck with your choice! ;)

Kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
 
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snigg said:
looking o buy a Canon 50mm, should I save and buy the better built 1.4 as reading the reviews the 1.8 is very badly built and comes with a good sprinkling of dust as standard, it seems?

Anyone here bought the 1.8 and wish they never.
Click to expand...

The f1.8 is a cheapish way to get a fast lens. The downside is the poor build quality, slow (sometimes inaccurate) focus and the 5 bladed diaphragm which gives nasty bokeh.

Never heard about it being dusty though. I owned a mk1 version which had the metal mount but its no different optically to the mk2.

When you stop down to f2.8 there is nothing between the f1.4 or the f1.8.
 
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