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This seems to be a rather low price for an EF prime lens with an f/1.8 capability:

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-50mm-1-8-Ca ... 396&sr=8-1

I can't afford $350+ for the f/1.4 EF glass, but a hundred bucks is pretty close to my Gimme Gimme Range. All I've got right now is my kit zoom lens and I would like to tinker with something more suitable to night exposures and flash-less indoor situations.

This was the first lens I bought after owning the Canon Rebel Xsi for a few months. Don't let the price fool you, the lens is a very good performer for its price.

Here is a great review of the lens and there are some comparisons to the more expensive models.

I use the lens primarily for indoor sports photography. The f/1.8 really helps in gyms with bad lighting. The photos even with an iso of 800 are good enough for my college's newspaper. Some of my best shots were taken with the 50mm lens.

You can't really do manual focus with the lens, but it does a decent job auto focusing.

I concur. The canon 50mm f/1.8 is a great lens (unlike Nikon's piss poor 50 mmf/1.8 ).

If you're shooting the night sky, you'll have to balance exposure time with the rotation of the night sky. Long exposures (a minute or more) will give streaky stars, which could be a desired effect.

Even at ISO 100, though, you can easily get 10s exposures with your lens at f/1.8, so you'll have plenty of room to experiment.

Tip: don't stop down (any lens) beyond f/11 on your DSLR, or you'll actually get less sharpness due to diffraction.

I'm guessing you went for a Canon Rebel instead of the Sony 230? Good choice (I like Canon ergonomics the best, but that's a matter of preference).

EDIT :ARGH! Can we get rid of the sunglasses smiley? Every time I end a parentheses after the number 8 I get instead of 8 ). -_-

Voldenuit wrote:

EDIT :ARGH! Can we get rid of the sunglasses smiley? Every time I end a parentheses after the number 8 I get 8) instead of 8 ). -_-

Every time that you enter a post, there are 5 checkboxes under Options below the entry window. These are:
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:D :) :( :o :-? 8) :lol: :x :P :oops: :cry: :evil: :roll: :wink:

It's decent.
Worth picking up simply because of the price.

The EF 50mm f/1.8 is Canon's lightest and least expensive lens, but it still has decent image quality. At just $90, it's an amazing bargain, earning it the name "nifty fifty."

Voldenuit wrote:

The canon 50mm f/1.8 is a great lens (unlike Nikon's piss poor 50 mmf/1.8 ).

What's wrong with Nikon's 50mm f/1.8? I don't think it has quite the maximum sharpness of the Canon but I believe it's sharper wide open.

Voldenuit wrote:

I'm guessing you went for a Canon Rebel instead of the Sony 230? Good choice (I like Canon ergonomics the best, but that's a matter of preference).

Actually, that was Welch. I got my Rebel XS back at the end of January.

I think I'm going to buy one of these. A friend owns an older version of the f/1.4 lens and it was a real treat to try out, but I've got auto maintenance coming due.

ludi wrote:

Voldenuit wrote:

I'm guessing you went for a Canon Rebel instead of the Sony 230? Good choice (I like Canon ergonomics the best, but that's a matter of preference).

Actually, that was Welch. I got my Rebel XS back at the end of January.

I think I'm going to buy one of these. A friend owns an older version of the f/1.4 lens and it was a real treat to try out, but I've got auto maintenance coming due.

I had the f/1.4 too (on my film camera(s)), that was a great lens, and easily the equal of the L lenses in my collection. If you're thinking of using the lens as a portrait lens, I'd recommend saving up for the 1.4, since the bokeh will be much better.

this is the best lens for a novice to get it is a 1.4 though which is better

the difference will be this
you will need a flash with the 1.8 sometimes, the 1.4 should let more light in for a better picture
I dont believe it is USM either
I dont know what you want to take pictures of at night, but it can be a headache
this type of lens causes a blur effect in the background, the effect will be better with the 1.4

anyway, the 1.8 is a good lens if all you have is 100$ and way better than the one that comes with the stock canon
you can always upgrade to a 1.4 later when you are serious about pictures
no, taking pictures of computer parts is not serious
the 1.8 will be a good fun lens

potatochobit wrote:

I dont believe it is USM either

The 1.4 uses a linear USM motor instead of a circular motor as found on more expensive lenses. The linear motors are cheaper than circular ones, and do not have the advantages of the circular motors, including speed and full-time MF. However, the linear motor in the 1.4 is still smaller than a traditional motor, and it has a clutch mechanism that allows full time MF override.

I bought the f/1.8 II lens. As noted I had seen the f/1.4 both on Amazon and in real life, and while it is a beautiful lens, I can't be putting that kind of money into glass just yet. Maybe in a year or so when I have a better grasp of how the camera works. In the meantime, this gives me more function to explore, as well as a fallback option if I somehow damage a lens while on the road or in the hills.

crazybus wrote:

Voldenuit wrote:

The canon 50mm f/1.8 is a great lens (unlike Nikon's piss poor 50 mmf/1.8 ).

What's wrong with Nikon's 50mm f/1.8? I don't think it has quite the maximum sharpness of the Canon but I believe it's sharper wide open.

I wanna second this question, and also ask a caveat question: Which Nikon 1.8? Because I've shot with with Nikon's current f/1.8D, and used Canon's 1/8 on a buddy's Rebel quite a bit, too, and generally found them to be essentially equal. Canon always won a few points for consistently being cheaper, but in the world of lenses I consider a $20-$30 difference negligible, even if that is still a significant percentage of these specific lenses' prices.

bought the f/1.8 II lens. As noted I had seen the f/1.4 both on Amazon and in real life, and while it is a beautiful lens, I can't be putting that kind of money into glass just yet.

With the 50/1.8s, I consider the price so cheap compared to other "meatier" lenses that they're totally worth buying just to play and experiment with. A wide-aperture prime puts one in a very different photographer "head space" compared to a slower zoom, in my opinion.

SPOOFE wrote:

I wanna second this question, and also ask a caveat question: Which Nikon 1.8?

Steve Huff tested the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 against the Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens and found that it had quite a bit of corner softness wide open (and wasn't as sharp as the 20 in the center either).

Admittedly, the Nikkor costs a third of the Panasonic (which I think is overpriced if bought separately, but it is a great lens). But I still think that a 50mm prime should be a stalwart of a company's lineup, even the lower end models. And the Canon 1.8 II doesn't disappoint. Maybe piss poor is too harsh a ruling for a $100 lens, but I was quite unimpressed with the results I saw in a very non-challenging shot. It should be noted though that the picture was shot with a FX camera, which would show up inadequacies in the lens much more than APS-C sized DX cameras (and why would anyone use a $100 lens with a $5,000 body?). The lens might be just fine on a DX body, come to think of it...

Voldenuit wrote:

It should be noted though that the picture was shot with a FX camera, which would show up inadequacies in the lens much more than APS-C sized DX cameras (and why would anyone use a $100 lens with a $5,000 body?). The lens might be just fine on a DX body, come to think of it...

According to DP Review, the $120 Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8D has much better corner sharpness than the $90 Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 when both are shot wide open (f/1.8) on an APS-C body. Stopping down to f/2.8 improves the result enough to give the low-priced Canon "nifty fifty" a slight edge. By f/4, the inexpensive Canon lens has a significant image quality advantage that it maintains until f/11, where both lenses become limited by diffraction.
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/wid ... on.xml%3F4

Handy tool. On an APS-C body, the Nikkor 50mm 1.8D compares very favorably against the Panny 20mm (it should be remembered that Panny/Oly does in-body CA "correction", so the CA graphs are not representative of the lens per se). I retract my criticism of the Nikkor on APS-C.

PS: On full-frame, even the Canon 1.4 doesn't do any better than the Nikkor 1.8 at the corners. Anyone know if this is due to the glass, or due to the sensor (and light hitting it at an oblique angle). I know leica makes a big deal of shifting its outer microlenses to correct for this, but they have a much shorter FFD than the full-frame DSLRs...

Steve Huff tested the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 against the Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens and found that it had quite a bit of corner softness wide open (and wasn't as sharp as the 20 in the center either).

I'm unimpressed; he talks very little of what he did to the images, both with in-camera settings (which can make a world of difference) or with post-processing, other than to mention the program he used. And I have a sneaking suspicion that he's not providing us 100% crops from the images, but then it might just be late and I missed it... but you can soften a picture really easily if you start resizing.

On the other hand, maybe the 1.8 does suck on FX. I'll let you know, right after I sell my car and buy a D3.

SPOOFE wrote:

Steve Huff tested the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 against the Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens and found that it had quite a bit of corner softness wide open (and wasn't as sharp as the 20 in the center either).

I'm unimpressed; he talks very little of what he did to the images, both with in-camera settings (which can make a world of difference) or with post-processing, other than to mention the program he used. And I have a sneaking suspicion that he's not providing us 100% crops from the images, but then it might just be late and I missed it... but you can soften a picture really easily if you start resizing

A few more considerations to consider:
Strength of the antialiasing filters in each camera
Focus! The DoF of the 50 at f/2.5 on a D3s is much, much, much smaller than the Dof of the 20 at f/2.8 on the Panasonic, something that seems to fly completely over his head. We're talking about a factor of 5-6 here, and at pixel-peeping levels you're dealing with a much narrower depth of field that traditional DoF considerations will suggest you are. He could easily have misfocused *both* lenses, but it's unlikely to show up nearly as much with the 20.
Flat-field issues. The nikon 50 isn't a flat field lens. If you're not shooting brick wall beauty shots this isn't a huge deal, but it's going to make the corners look worse when you do.

The 1.8 certainly isn't perfect. It does perk up as you move away from 1.8, but in the real world that's often due to the user doing a better job of focusing... I'm also having a difficult time thinking of when one would want to utilize a normal lens in such a way that extreme corner sharpness at wide apertures was the driving concern.

mattsteg wrote:

I'm also having a difficult time thinking of when one would want to utilize a normal lens in such a way that extreme corner sharpness at wide apertures was the driving concern.

On point.

I owned the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 for a bit, but sold it for a 60mm macro at the time because I found it more useful to me. Generally the DOF is going to be so thin at f/1.8 and your subject is rarely in the corners. If your outdoors shooting at infinity then you probably wouldn't be at f/1.8 anyways...

There's still the problem that the $120 Nikon 50mm f/1.8D requires a camera that costs $400+ more if you want to auto-focus with it. You've got to get the $440 AF-S 50mm f/1.4G if you want to autofocus on a low-end Nikon camera. Perhaps it would be more reasonable to consider Nikon's "affordable" $200 AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G as an appropriate comparison to the Panasonic 20mm lens? They're a lot closer to having the same field of view, too.

None of these options are in the same range of affordability as the $90 "nifty fifty" Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens, which is fully functional with every Canon EOS SLR and DSLR camera sold since 1987.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

There's still the problem that the $120 Nikon 50mm f/1.8D requires a camera that costs $400+ more if you want to auto-focus with it. You've got to get the $440 AF-S 50mm f/1.4G if you want to autofocus on a low-end Nikon camera. Perhaps it would be more reasonable to consider Nikon's "affordable" $200 AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G as an appropriate comparison to the Panasonic 20mm lens? They're a lot closer to having the same field of view, too.

They're certainly not a lot closer to having the same field of view than the combination tested...
Panasonic 20: 46.4/35.9 degree h/v fov
nikon 50 as-tested: 39.6/27 degree h/v fov
nikon 35 on an appropriate camera: 36.5/25.1 degree h/v fov

Your math can be baffling at times.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

According to DP Review, the $120 Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8D has much better corner sharpness than the $90 Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 when both are shot wide open (f/1. on an APS-C body. Stopping down to f/2.8 improves the result enough to give the low-priced Canon "nifty fifty" a slight edge. By f/4, the inexpensive Canon lens has a significant image quality advantage that it maintains until f/11, where both lenses become limited by diffraction.
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/wid ... on.xml%3F4

Also, you can't really back this up for a few reasons.

• At f/2.8, the Nikon combination tested exhibited slightly greater corner resolution on APS-C. This is exactly the opposite of what you claim.
• I'm not sure what you mean by "significant image quality advantage". The canon combination does have higher resolution at f/4 as well as less chromatic aberration. How visible these would be in an image is open for debate. Speaking personally, I just image quality by how good the resulting image looks, not by some line graphs. When both lenses are at of near the Nyquist limit of the cameras involved, I'm not sure I'd call any differences "significant"
• These are system comparisons. You can't compare results using one camera with those using another and claim you're comparing lenses. Everything from AA filter design choices, processing, electronics, etc. gets involved in the final result.

Is the Canon optically better? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, your data doesn't match your claims.

There's still the problem that the $120 Nikon 50mm f/1.8D requires a camera that costs $400+ more if you want to auto-focus with it

No, it doesn't. You can buy a sub-$100 35mm film body that will work great with the 50mm... and if you meant dSLR's in particular, I gotta ask: How many sub-$400 models are there, outside of buying a really old used body? I mean, I can still find D70's for around $300.

Voldenuit wrote:

I had the f/1.4 too (on my film camera(s)), that was a great lens, and easily the equal of the L lenses in my collection. If you're thinking of using the lens as a portrait lens, I'd recommend saving up for the 1.4, since the bokeh will be much better.

Another vote for the 1.4. The bokeh is much better.

http://photo.net/equipment/canon/ef50/

JustAnEngineer wrote:

There's still the problem that the $120 Nikon 50mm f/1.8D requires a camera that costs $400+ more if you want to auto-focus with it. You've got to get the $440 AF-S 50mm f/1.4G if you want to autofocus on a low-end Nikon camera. Perhaps it would be more reasonable to consider Nikon's "affordable" $200 AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G as an appropriate comparison to the Panasonic 20mm lens? They're a lot closer to having the same field of view, too.

None of these options are in the same range of affordability as the $90 "nifty fifty" Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens, which is fully functional with every Canon EOS SLR and DSLR camera sold since 1987.

I would say that the 35mm f/1.8 is a better comparison.

I agree that Canon has a slight edge with the nifty fifty, but the 50mm 1.8AF-D isn't a bad lens. It's much sharper than any zoom, even wide open. Corner sharpness is irrelevant, as mattsteg pointed out. Nothing can be in focus in the corners anyways wide open like that.

I do wonder if/when Nikon will update the 50mm 1.8 to AF-S.

I do wonder if/when Nikon will update the 50mm 1.8 to AF-S

It does seem like they have odd priorities. For instance, the 85mm f/3.5 macro lens recently introduced really had me puzzled; I confess I'm not a macro shooter and don't have much interest (so maybe there is some big clamoring demand), but with all the updates they've been dragging their feet on, it seemed like a strange choice.

SpotTheCat wrote:

JustAnEngineer wrote:

There's still the problem that the $120 Nikon 50mm f/1.8D requires a camera that costs $400+ more if you want to auto-focus with it. You've got to get the $440 AF-S 50mm f/1.4G if you want to autofocus on a low-end Nikon camera.

I do wonder if/when Nikon will update the 50mm 1.8 to AF-S.

At their current rate, it shouldn't take Nikon more than another 5-10 years to convert the entire Nikkor lens line to include internal focus motors. They introduced a few AF-S prime lenses last year.

I believe that the $120 Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D is a pretty good deal for a Nikon lens, if you happen to own a mid-range or professional Nikon DSLR. Unfortunately, the cheapest currently-offered DSLR that auto-focuses with this affordable lens is the Nikon D90 (on sale with new rebates this week for $900 -- about $400 more than an entry-level DSLR). Personally, when I was looking for a 50mm Nikkor lens, I bought the $320 50mm f/1.4D.

Why do threads like this one always devolve into a Canon vs. Nikon debate? It's ridiculous.

The EF 50mm f/1.8 II is a great lens for its price. It's on the sharp side in terms of IQ, opens wide, and has a good focal length for everyday use. There are 50mm lenses that are wider, sharper, and with more robust features. The way I see it, if you're in the market for a $100 lens, chances are this model is the widest you'll have in your lens cache, and it's probably the sharpest, too. For ~$100, it's a fine lens to own if you want to do standard primes on the cheap. Usually cheap lenses compromise quality, but in this case, the compromise isn't all that great, as Canon skipped the features and focused on image quality. If you find that your day job requires a better 50mm, that's about the only reason you could have for needing a more expensive lens.

Background blur is different on the 1.8II than on the more expensive Canon lenses, but I personally think the big deal about background blur in the photography industry is out of proportion. Background blur is a matter of taste.

FireGryphon wrote:

Why do threads like this one always devolve into a Canon vs. Nikon debate? It's ridiculous.

It started in the third message of the thread, for no reason that I can discern.


If you're starting out with a Canon EOS Rebel DSLR, you could do a lot worse than picking the $75 (in kit with camera body) EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, the $90 EF 50mm f/1.8 II and the $250 EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS to start your collection of lenses.