Canon EF 50mm F/1.8

[aquinsey]

I have this lens (the cheap nifty fifty), its well worth the $100 (although I got mine as a gift) and get a bit of use out of it, mostly floral & some close up photography. My next idea is to use it with extension tubes - but that's for another time.

[Speedway]

This lens was my first upgrade lens for my 400D about 5 years ago and is now semi permanently attached to that camera, it has done a lot of work in those 5 years and has never let me down. At $52 from EGlobal why wouldn't you have one in your bag.
Cheers
Keith.

The Swing.

[Riverlander]

I agree with Keith (Speedway). It is a good cheap lens - I spend upwards of $53 a week on booze - which does me no good :_(

[Echoes]

I've had some great success with this lens especially with close up flower work - the bokeh is really neat :-)

I tend to use manual focus most of the time, and am still testing the AV ranges to get the best focus/bokeh compromise.

May move to the 1.4 some stage down the track but for now this lens suits me well.

[JODEAN]

I like my nifty fifty, it's just such a nice little lens.

[dabooda]

I think it's a good introduction to primes. The plastic body does make it feel chinsy and cheap but it also means it's super light. Add that to a XXXD class camera and you have a light take-everywhere daily shooter.

I'm going to stop using my 24-105 for single person head shots and just use the nifty. Whenever I've used it for a head shot I wonder why it took me so long to slap it on the camera.

One thing to watch out for when using a wide aperture when taking a head shot is to make sure the closest eye is in focus. A head shot at 50mm is pretty close to the subject so that depth of field gets really narrow at f/1.8. If the focus isn't 100% on the eye you won't have a wide depth of field to save you. Also if you use the focus-then-recompose technique like I do remember that with a shallow depth of field and being so close to the subject means that the focal point you focused on will not be the focal point when you recompose. If you don't have an AF point that sits on the eye that you can select to auto focus then you might need to manually focus.

I've missed quite a few head shots because of these points. My 5D has bugger all focus points hence using focus-then-recompose but I'm trying to get out of the habit.

[ricktas]

I would like to add that just cause a lens goes to 1.8 doesn't mean it has to! Most lenses are sharpest from about f8-f14 (this is just science). I would not recommend using f1.8 for most close portraiture. There seems to be this misconception that because I have a 1.8 lens, I have to use it at that aperture.

[dabooda]

Very true. I think I'll need to start using an aperture that makes the whole head sharp.

In terms of performance the dpreview sharpness test shows the lens being really sharp at f/5.6 from the centre to about half way out. The most even amount of sharpness is at f/8, meaning that while it's not at its sharpest it's uniformly sharp all the way out to the corners.

http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/...0_1p8_ii_c16/4

[Xenedis]

I would like to add that just cause a lens goes to 1.8 doesn't mean it has to! Most lenses are sharpest from about f8-f14 (this is just science). I would not recommend using f1.8 for most close portraiture. There seems to be this misconception that because I have a 1.8 lens, I have to use it at that aperture.

Very true, but when you get it right at very narrow apertures, the results can look awesome.

I shot this portrait with my 85/1.2 wide-open:



In most cases, though, I tend to use f/5.6 when shooting portraits with that lens, but I have used f/1.2 on a few occasions.

- - - Updated - - -

Very true. I think I'll need to start using an aperture that makes the whole head sharp.

Don't forget that depth of field is also affected by subject distance and focal length. Aperture is one way to increase DOF, but if you're at minimum focusing distance and using a longer focal length, you'll struggle for DOF even if you stop down.

Remember also that stopping down to very narrow apertures is generally not a good idea, as from around f/16 or so, you'll start to encounter diffraction, which decreases image clarity.