Portrait/event type lens

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Archive 2008 · Portrait/event type lens

Daan B
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p.2 #1 · Portrait/event type lens

Yakim Peled wrote:
I had both 50/1.8 and 50/1.4 at the same time for about 3 months. I found AF speed and AF accuracy to be the same (low light included). Only AF noise was different.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

I have had both too... I found the 50 1.4 a much better performer regarding AF accuracy. YMMV

BTW I wouldn't recommend both to the OP.

Edited on Aug 25, 2008 at 07:36 AM

Aug 25, 2008 at 07:33 AM

Yakim Peled
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p.2 #2 · Portrait/event type lens

Why wouldn't you recommend the 50/1.8 to the OP?

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Aug 25, 2008 at 07:48 AM

Daan B
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p.2 #3 · Portrait/event type lens

Yakim Peled wrote:
Why wouldn't you recommend the 50/1.8 to the OP?

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

For wedding photography I would suggest a fast standard zoom in combination with a flash first and foremost. Learning how to operate a flash properly under these circumstances is a must. A standard zoom is the most flexible option. To complement this, I would suggest one or two fast primes (as a future buy) that are either wider or longer than 50mm (on a 1.6x crop body).

Edited on Aug 25, 2008 at 08:38 AM

Aug 25, 2008 at 08:34 AM

dhphoto
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p.2 #4 · Portrait/event type lens

The Answer is almost always the same, Tamron 17-50 and sell the awful kit lens

David

Aug 25, 2008 at 08:40 AM

Daan B
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p.2 #5 · Portrait/event type lens

dhphoto wrote:
The Answer is almost always the same, Tamron 17-50 and sell the awful kit lens

David

Good suggestion David

Aug 25, 2008 at 08:42 AM

dhphoto
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p.2 #6 · Portrait/event type lens

Daan B wrote:
dhphoto wrote:
The Answer is almost always the same, Tamron 17-50 and sell the awful kit lens

David

Good suggestion David

The 450D only really shines when it has a good lens on it. It would seem the 17-55IS is THE BEST choice but it is so prohibitively expensive.

If a 2.8 max ap is needed then it has to be the Tmron otherwise I really like my Sigma 17-70 but it isn't as fast at the long end (but, of course, it's longer

)

David

Aug 25, 2008 at 08:59 AM

Tentacle
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p.2 #7 · Portrait/event type lens

dhphoto wrote:
The Answer is almost always the same, Tamron 17-50 and sell the awful kit lens

The 18-55IS is definately not an awful lens. It is, in many ways, just like the Nifty Fifty. It's cheap and flimsy build, it barrels, vignettes and CAs considerably. But the IS works like a charm and it's razor sharp, outperforming some of the L glass. Price-performance-wise it's brilliant. Check the review at Photozone here.

The earlier non-IS versions of the 18-55 kitlens, yes, those were afwul.

Regarding the AF performance of the 50/1.8 in low light: Just set the Speedlite to fire the AF assist only. The little red beam goes a long way in nailing focus.

Edited on Aug 25, 2008 at 09:05 AM

Aug 25, 2008 at 09:04 AM

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p.2 #8 · Portrait/event type lens

Tentacle wrote:
But the IS works like a charm and it's razor sharp, outperforming some of the L glass.

Whoa! I admiit I've only had two, a non-IS with my 350D kit and an IS version with my 450D, but they were (in my opinion) utterly, unusably awful and slow.

I honestly believe Canon do themselves no favours putting a fantastic sensor in the 450D and sticking such an awful kit lens on the front. Those new to Canon might think thats all the camera can do.

Maybe the ones I had weren't representative, but I would never, ever use one again

David

Edited on Aug 25, 2008 at 09:10 AM

Aug 25, 2008 at 09:08 AM

Tentacle
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p.2 #9 · Portrait/event type lens

dhphoto wrote:

[...]

Maybe the ones I had weren't representative, but I would never, ever use one again

My take on it (on the single copy I had the chance to play around with.)

Lightweight plastic flimsy build. Including a plastic mount. So what?? It's lightweight, so it's not that the mount has to carry large forces. It vignettes quite a bit. I'm okay with that, I like the look, so I won't hold that against the lens. It can't take a polariser well because the front end rotates. Speaking of the front end ... that's also the manual focus ring. Yuckk!! But then again, I rarely MF, so again no big deal for me.

It has IS. Pretty effective IS too. It is different mechanism from the big L lenses and I found it isn't as predictable as the regular system, but I easily got 2 to 3 stops worth of shutter time improvement from it, across the whole focal range.

Anything else? Well, yes, it barrels considerably and there is some CA too. Both is easily taken care of in PP. Oh, and it's sharp. That doesn't quite do it justice. It's razor sharp. LPH numbers, especially center numbers, beat quite a lot of L glass.

So ... ok, it cuts quite a bit of corners. But you get all this for €90 to €100. To put this in perspective, the 50mm f/1.8 II is in the €80 to €90 range over here in the Netherlands. Right now you CAN NOT get anything better in Price-Performance ratio.

Aug 26, 2008 at 06:43 PM

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