halo0 said:For those of us new to DSLR, what situations is this lens good for? My kit lens is the 18-55 IS lens.
this lens is a fixed focal lenth and aperature lens so it's not as versatile as your 18-55mm kit lens. However picture quality of this lens is much better than your kit lens.
Lightweight and affordable, the Canon EF 50mm lens--which offers a fast f/1.8 aperture--is an excellent lens for people who prefer a fixed focal length. Canon's lightest EF lens at a mere 4.6 ounces, the lens boasts a traditional Gauss-type optical design that delivers a sharp performance even when wide open. As a result, the lens provides an image that's extremely close to how your eye perceives a subject, making it excellent for portraits and images that require a natural depth of field. In addition, the lens focuses as close as 18 inches, helping you take extreme close-ups. Finally, the lens offers an excellent color balance.
The kit lens is a good starter lens but is very slow at 50mm. With a film SLR camera where there is no crop factor, 50mm is what the human eye sees i.e. no zoom. With most consumer DSLR there is a built in 1.6x zoom so this is actually a 80mm lens. This is a prime lens which means it is fixed and you can't zoom in and out. The speed (fast or slow) me measured in F stops. The f/1.8 means that the aperture can be very wide which allows you to use a faster shutter speed. I.E. the kit lens is f/3.5 at 50mm verses f/1.8 on the prime lens. If you take a picture using the kit lens at 50mm you have to use 1/50 (slow) second shutter speed verses 1/125 (fast)for the f/1.8. The f/1.8 also blurs the background and makes the foreground very sharp so it's my ideal wedding lens. You can read more about f stops here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number
halo0 said:For those of us new to DSLR, what situations is this lens good for? My kit lens is the 18-55 IS lens.
This is good for some portraits shots....much better than your stock kit lens. In fact I would sell your kit lens (as I will do) and focus on better glass.
But even as portraight shots go, if your doing a full length portrait..this should be fine (as you should not be standing closer than 15 feet from your subject). I just bought, what manay consider a superiod "portrait" lens...the Canon 85mm. But then again..it's around $300. With this lens, you can do better sittign and head shots, whereas, if you tried that with the 50mm, you would experience more distortion of facial/head features as you would have to get too close to your subject.
Some like the 105 as the best portrait lens, but that is more from old wives tales about it being the "perfect portrait lens"
As for another lens you might look into, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 is a really nice, and inexpensive lens. With f/1.8 you can shoot in really low light and also get sweet shallow depth of field. The images are really sharp, too. It can be had for less than $90 most places. I would recommend trying to find a used "Mark 1" or "Mk I" model, though. The Mark II model uses more plastic in the body and I've heard complaints about the build quality. I myself bought a Mark II model (used, of course; they aren't made anymore) on eBay for $180. I love it. It's loud (before the days of USM) when autofocusing, but it's solid. That's one of the only times I'd allow for buying camera gear on eBay, older used goods are usually being sold by experienced photogs who won't rip you off, and especially I would allow it for the 50mm 1.8 Mk1, since it's so hard to find.
That being said, $80 for a brand new MK2 sounds good to me.
great starter lens - would recommend it - fair price. Got mine from Amazon $90 with a $6.99 tiffen filter (free shipping). I use it for photos where I want to blur out the background (Bokeh) and have the object of the photo just pop out - works great - just widen the apeture on Av towards f/1.8. It is really a "must buy" for someone starting out with a dSLR/SLR - allow you to get creative with your photos - remember it is a fixed focal lenght and that means NO ZOOM. Also the crop factor really makes it 80mm (x1.6 crop). Also, The stock kit lenses on the XT and XTi are not really too good, very soft (the XSi stock zoom USM IS lens, however, has got some good review). The other lens to get right now is the 28-135mm IS USM that people who bought the Canon 40D kit are selling on craigslist etc... for ~$300 - for the XT/XTi/XSi it is a great upgrade for that price. R
halo0 said:For those of us new to DSLR, what situations is this lens good for? My kit lens is the 18-55 IS lens.
People who are new to DSLR should start with this lens. Kit lens is more versatile but this lens will allow you to play with settings more, because of f/1.8 aperture.
To answer your questions, this lens is great for portrait. It produces nice bokeh (for its price) and the length is nice for portrait, not too long or too far (assuming you have a 1.6 crop factor camera).
this lens is good, great for playing with depth of feild...
so here is what you do,
1.Buy this lens 2.put your camera on M mode 3. set your apature on 1.8 4. start adjusting your shutter speed up from 1/100 of a second 5. enjoy seeing the blurry goodness of D.O.F. 6. sell this lens and buy the 1.4 - it's so much better.
If you are asking questions about this lens and you don't know about this lens, then chances are, you are not a super duper photographer, so the quality should be acceptable for you.
For the rest who are looking for better photo quality, little bit wider aperture, more blades, better built quality, go with F/1.4.
I own:
Canon EOS 40D Canon EF 24-105 F4/L IS Canon EF 70-200mm F4/L Canon EF 17-40 F4/L Canon EF 100mm Macro F/2.8 Canon EF 50mm F/1.4 Canon 430EX Bogen Manfrotto 190XPROB 3 Section Aluminum Pro Tripod Bogen-Manfrotto 486RC2 Compact Ball Head with RC2 Rapid Connect System
Great lens. And its also available at Amazon $for 88.57 FS and no sales tax. In addition you get a bonus from Shutterfly: Purchase this product from Amazon.com, and receive a unique coupon code for 20 free prints (10 4x6, 5 5x7, 5 8x10) from Shutterfly--a $26.80 value. You can sell this code on eBay to reduce the price of this lens.
Still, 1.8 brand new for under $100 is great. Finding Minolta AF lenses for the Sony is turning into a hassle because e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e has the Sony and e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e wants the lenses I want on eBay.
One point others haven't pointed out is that fast lenses reduce the need for unnatural illumination, and will work well for indoor shots with no flash. The aperture from 1.4 to 1.8 isn't that big of a difference, except to achieve 1.4, the glass is dramatically better. And as for portraits, 85mm is a standard close-up portrait lens size for 35mm, so 50mm into 85mm translates well. Go and buy a mottled backdrop and watch the bokeh effect (if any good) change the backdrop into a creamy multicolored background.
You should review what is good/bad bokeh. If the lens resolves a "creamy-like" background, that's good bokeh, but if it's making light rings, that's "bad bokeh." I don't know about this lens's bokeh, but not all bokeh is the same for any given lens.
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