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50mm f/1.8 (original) on Rebel?
- Thread starter nickXedge
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This lense might be my next purchase! Though I think I HAVE to get the Mark II. Can't find the original anywhere.
Just recently got into photography and actually have been using my friend's 50mm f/1.8 Original on my mom's Rebel XSi. haha. ALL BORROWED EQUIPMENT, LOL! I must find funding for my own.
Just recently got into photography and actually have been using my friend's 50mm f/1.8 Original on my mom's Rebel XSi. haha. ALL BORROWED EQUIPMENT, LOL! I must find funding for my own.
This lense might be my next purchase! Though I think I HAVE to get the Mark II. Can't find the original anywhere.
Just recently got into photography and actually have been using my friend's 50mm f/1.8 Original on my mom's Rebel XSi. haha. ALL BORROWED EQUIPMENT, LOL! I must find funding for my own.
honestly...unless you really need a distance scale and are allergic to cheap plastic lenses, just get the Mk II. the optics are exactly the same and the AF on the new one is quieter.
I actually got the mark I used for my 1000D. Works well, though the AF is, as noted, quite noticeable. One thing to pay attention to if this is your first EF lens is to line up the red dots instead of the white... (This tripped me up a bit in the start I can admit.)
what is the names for them?...lol.. i'm flying on the same boat as this person, but just not sure if i should get the 1.8 or the 1.4 for 50mm lens, i've got a T1i, but it's the plastic build quality that's turning me off, will it still be TACK SHARP as the 1.4?
Here we go...
The 50 f/1.4 is the better lens, without question. The bokeh is far superior, the AF performance in low light is much, much better (I would say that low light AF on the f/1.8 is poor to abysmal), and it's 2/3 of a stop faster.
It is also about 3 times the price. However, the 50 f/1.4 is still not what I'd call an "expensive" lens. It does have its downsides (non-USM AF, some copies can be soft wide open), but in my opinion it is a much better lens than the 50 f/1.8.
All of that said, I find 50mm to be a difficult focal length on an APS-C body (80mm equivalent). It's not wide enough to be a good walkaround, and isn't really all that long either. Unless you're doing portraits with it, I would opt for the Canon 30 f/2, which will give you a much more classic 50mm FOV on an APS-C body (well, 48mm, but who's counting?).
If you really, really feel the need to get a 50, I would go with the f/1.4. It's just a better lens than the f/1.8.
Here we go...
The 50 f/1.4 is the better lens, without question. The bokeh is far superior, the AF performance in low light is much, much better (I would say that low light AF on the f/1.8 is poor to abysmal), and it's 2/3 of a stop faster.
It is also about 3 times the price. However, the 50 f/1.4 is still not what I'd call an "expensive" lens. It does have its downsides (non-USM AF, some copies can be soft wide open), but in my opinion it is a much better lens than the 50 f/1.8.
All of that said, I find 50mm to be a difficult focal length on an APS-C body (80mm equivalent). It's not wide enough to be a good walkaround, and isn't really all that long either. Unless you're doing portraits with it, I would opt for the Canon 30 f/2, which will give you a much more classic 50mm FOV on an APS-C body (well, 48mm, but who's counting?).
If you really, really feel the need to get a 50, I would go with the f/1.4. It's just a better lens than the f/1.8.
i seee.. so your saying, that, if your camera isn't a full frame, and you put a 50mm on it, it'll look like an 80mm lens was on it?..i've got a T1i, and i'm using the lens kit 18-55, does that mean it's also zooming in more than it's supposed to?
if you mean the names for the 50/1.8, it's just Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 and EF 50mm f/1.8 II. the II is a cheap plastic one, the original is a cheap metal one.
forget about all this equivalent crap. focal length is fixed - a 50mm lens is 50mm on 35mm, medium format, large format, APS-C, 4/3, or whatever other camera format you can think of. this information is useless to you unless you are familiar with 35mm cameras.
50mm is a standard lens on 35mm. on a T1i, which is APS-C, a 30mm lens is standard, and 50mm is a short telephoto. a standard lens is much more useful as a general-purpose lens than a telephoto, especially as your only prime.
so if you want a prime, it's best to buy a Canon 28/1.8, Canon 35/2 (which is actually a long standard or very short telephoto, depending how you look at it), or Sigma 30/1.4 instead. the Canon 35/2 is the cheapest, around $250 used. I would buy that until you can afford a Sigma 30/1.4, assuming you like the field of view.
I disagree with Edge here. I've had both - two 50/1.8's, one refurb and one used, on a 30D and 5D, and a 50/1.4 on the 5D. I've had no issues with AF accuracy with the 1.8 on either body, though admittedly I rarely used it on the 30D. you just have to know what to focus on in poor light.
sharpness-wise, they are similar...pretty much everywhere. most 50/1.4's exhibit halation at f/1.4, making it softer than it should be. I don't think it's usable unless at f/1.6, when the halation goes away.
the 50/1.8, with its cheap optics and 5-bladed aperture, has distracting out-of-focus blur. on 50/1.4 the out-of-focus blur is still distracting (i.e. bad bokeh) when the background is busy or contains a lot of specular highlights. if the background is relatively clear, it does better than the 50/1.8. other than that...both are pretty similar, optically.
the 1.4 has a better build and a USM motor, but it's AF speed isn't much faster (if at all) because it's the same motor, just silent. I didn't think a better build for marginally better optics and 1/3 stop (f/1.8 - f/1.6) was worth the money, so I kept the 50/1.8 until I could afford a Sigma 50/1.4.
Yup. On a Canon APS-C sensor body (all of the Rebel/XXXD series and XXD series, plus the 7D) you must multiply the focal length of the lens by 1.6 to get the effective focal length. This happens because you are only using the middle of the projected image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_factor
To be clear, the 50 still behaves like a 50 (Edit: as toxic has said above); you haven't changed the optics of the lens. But you are getting an effective magnification relative to full frame because you are only using the middle of the image and then projecting that onto a full-frame sized output. It is precisely the same as taking a full frame image, cropping it by 1.6x, and then upsizing the image back to full frame size.
The obvious advantage here is that your 200mm lens has now become an effective 320mm lens, which is great if you need that extra reach. The obvious disadvantage is that your 17mm lens is now 27.2mm; you can't get nearly as wide.
One of the other ramifications of this has to do with the old rule that you should always shoot at a minimum of 1/focal length in order to get good sharpness. On an APS-C sensor body, you have to take the crop into account so you should aim for 1/effective focal length; meaning instead of going for 1/50 with a 50mm lens, you shoot try to maintain 1/80.
thanksHere we go...
The 50 f/1.4 is the better lens, without question. The bokeh is far superior, the AF performance in low light is much, much better (I would say that low light AF on the f/1.8 is poor to abysmal), and it's 2/3 of a stop faster.
It is also about 3 times the price. However, the 50 f/1.4 is still not what I'd call an "expensive" lens. It does have its downsides (non-USM AF, some copies can be soft wide open), but in my opinion it is a much better lens than the 50 f/1.8.
All of that said, I find 50mm to be a difficult focal length on an APS-C body (80mm equivalent). It's not wide enough to be a good walkaround, and isn't really all that long either. Unless you're doing portraits with it, I would opt for the Canon 30 f/2, which will give you a much more classic 50mm FOV on an APS-C body (well, 48mm, but who's counting?).
If you really, really feel the need to get a 50, I would go with the f/1.4. It's just a better lens than the f/1.8.
I noticed a mistake in my original synopsis of the 50 f/1.4. I said it lacks USM AF, which is false; it does have micromotor USM, just not ring-type USM.