1.4? 1.4???? YOU CAN'T HANDLE 1.4!!!!!

dnme

Well my first ever lens arrived this morning. The Canon 50mm 1.4. Up til now I have been using the 17-85 kit lens.

Mother of god that's one shallow dof at 1.4 close up. Taking a shot of a box at a slight angle is enough to render some of the text in focus and some not. See image below, look at the difference between "ef" and "mm". The shooting angle was no more than 5 degrees. Amazing.

Any tips, advice or stories on using this lens?

Paulw

You could have gone for the 50mm f/1.2 if you wanted.

Yeah, very shallow DOF, but great for low light.

AnimalRights

It took me a long time to learn my shallow primes... 50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.8.

If hand held I find that closer the better and do make sure what you are shooting def falls into your AF points, other lens you can sometimes get away with it but I find not these 2 lens.

Also shoot at 1.6 which is a better quality image.

I love my lens.

Fenster

Oh its so big! /swoon

Masada

I never really got the whole nifty fifty buzz. I must do some research and see what all that is about.

edanto

I was just looking at one of them over the weekend. It was £300 in London - what did you pay for it? Buy it online?

Fajitas!

dnme wrote: »

Any tips, advice or stories on using this lens?

Wait until it gets dark (Granted, that's only about four o'clock in the evenings these days), bump up your ISO, and that's when the lens really begins to shine. It's the one lens I always have with me, and 90% of the time, never leaves the camera.

One of my recent favorite shots with it;

dnme

edanto wrote: »

I was just looking at one of them over the weekend. It was £300 in London - what did you pay for it? Buy it online?

Yea I paid £300 from Calumet
http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/

pete4130

I've got the Nikon version and you'll notice that when shooting at 1.4 only the centre of the image will be sharp (and not super sharp either). It's inherent wide lenses with such wide apertures. The further you move from the centre the less sharp it will be when at f/1.4....its just the physics of it. You should also get some nice light falloff/vignetting at 1.4 too. I find my colours get some extra saturation when shooting at 1.4 too.
It too is the one lens I never leave home without.


Taken at about 2am at 3200 ISO or 6400 ISO and 1.4.......

AnCatDubh

Should try it on manual focus - then you'll know the beauty pains of open apertures. Knashing of teeth and banshee like screams come as standard and at no extra cost

Having said that you've got to love them

Masada

How big a difference would you be looking at with the 1.8? Its a lot cheaper than the 1.4 but i suspect way off in terms of quality?

dnme

Fajitas and pete4130

Amazing shots both, you can really see the centre sharpness effect on pete4130's shot.

AnCatDubh, its funny you should mention manual focussing, I have been messing around with just that and getting sharper results than with AF. Is this normal ?

sineadw

Congrats! My favourite lens too

I prefer to MF on this lens if I have the time...

AnCatDubh

dnme wrote: »

Fajitas and pete4130

Amazing shots both, you can really see the centre sharpness effect on pete4130's shot.

AnCatDubh, its funny you should mention manual focussing, I have been messing around with just that and getting sharper results than with AF. Is this normal ?

Well I know a lot of ninjas gig shooters will switch to manual focus - as depending on the body they are using the autofocus may labour when you are getting very low light levels even with the open aperture so there is sense in what you are saying.

magicbastarder

the sigma 30mm 1.4 is also known to be a bit woolly around the edge wide open, but i've heard (if memory serves) that the earlier revisions suffered more than later ones.

pete4130

I have the 1.8 Nikon version too. It sits at home on a drawer or on my Nikon F100 35mm body or on my old D1 body. The Nikon 1.8 50mm is good. It's not built as well as the 1.4 and I know there is a huge price difference and only 2/3 of a stop extra light but it is so worth spending the extra if you can afford it. Those 2/3's of a stop can make a huge difference. The 1.4 just has a certain quality and look to the images.

Regarding the 1.8's build quality. I've had a kid kick a football and hit my 50mm 1.8 before and the barrel popped open on the lens a wee bit exposing circuitry, wires, electronics of the AF system. I sh@t my pants when I saw it. I just "clicked" it back together and it still worked perfect. None of the elements were moved, AF was spot on and it was still super sharp. They are small tough lenses and cheap for what you get too.

I was "stuck" using my 50mm 1.4 for 8 months when my 24-70 2.8 was faulty and needed repair. I learned to work with it and thats why it has become such a gem for me. It's still the first lens I pull out of the bag....if it isn't attached already.

Anouilh

I've had the f1.4 for months and it took this thread to make me look more closely at the shallow DOF.



It seems to add charm...

magicbastarder

i love shooting on 3200 delta with the 1.4 lens, but the obvious problem is that in daylight, you sometimes can't get to the wider apertures because you run ot of shutter speed before you get there...

dnme

.......which brings me round to the whole rough and tumble of Focus.

After getting this lens, some things focus related are starting to occur to me.

1. I am not blown away by AF with this lens. This is dissapointing because after reading through tons of stuff on here and elsewhere, the masses were telling me that going from my kit lens to this would blow me away. Hasn't happened so far. I realise I am a novice so I am wondering if there are opinions / experiences on this?

2. Do you trust your viewfinder when manual focussing?
I find it a bit dark / small / awkward as a tool for trying to get the precision of a perfect focus. Do you use liveview zoomed in when manal focussing or is that for wuss's ? /

3. What about a situation where you need to focus very quickly, also maybe we are in low light. Forget liveview, AF may not be great. Can I trus the viewfinder with MF?

Are these questions valid?

mikeanywhere

You will absolutely love the lens!!

Here are a couple of examples using the lens where I was specifically looking for the DOF. Don't have portraits on the machine I am currently using but will add some more later




EDIT: before the masses start shouting terrorist etc, it is a paintball marker!!

DaireQuinlan

dnme wrote: »

2. Do you trust your viewfinder when manual focussing?
I find it a bit dark / small / awkward as a tool for trying to get the precision of a perfect focus. Do you use liveview zoomed in when manal focussing or is that for wuss's ? /

3. What about a situation where you need to focus very quickly, also maybe we are in low light. Forget liveview, AF may not be great. Can I trus the viewfinder with MF?

I guess there are techniques you can use for manually focusing a f/1.4 lens using the type of viewfinders you normally find in DSLRs, but I think you'll probably get more misses than hits. Those viewfinders tend to be quite small and dim. But the biggest problem is that they'll most likely not actually really show any difference.

Most screens on modern cameras are optimized for slow zooms. Chances are you'll notice very little difference along a whole range of focus. I manually focus a 1.4 lens on a split screen on a full size 35mm viewfinder, and even that is difficult if you have a moving subject. Even the smallest inaccuracy at close range means the shot is gone.

One thing you can do is focus -past- the focal point, then back again through the point, then settle quickly back to the middle which will hopefully be the right spot.

Anouilh

I'm not sure that for 400 euro one should expect to get blown away...

This lens is a great leap forward, but it's good to keep in mind that it is only as good as the person using it. I need to become more conscious of technique to get the best results.

It is an excellent choice for our gloomy climate.

kumate_champ07

Masada wrote: »

I never really got the whole nifty fifty buzz. I must do some research and see what all that is about.

the nifty fifty is the f1.8 version
the 50mm f1.4 is better but needs a modern update imo

pete4130

Another portrait. Low light, high ISO, wide aperture and still a fast enough shutter speed.
ISO 3200,
f/1.4,
EV-2/3
Shutter 1/125th

Fajitas!

dnme wrote: »

1. I am not blown away by AF with this lens. This is dissapointing because after reading through tons of stuff on here and elsewhere, the masses were telling me that going from my kit lens to this would blow me away. Hasn't happened so far. I realise I am a novice so I am wondering if there are opinions / experiences on this?

2. Do you trust your viewfinder when manual focussing?
I find it a bit dark / small / awkward as a tool for trying to get the precision of a perfect focus. Do you use liveview zoomed in when manal focussing or is that for wuss's ? /

3. What about a situation where you need to focus very quickly, also maybe we are in low light. Forget liveview, AF may not be great. Can I trus the viewfinder with MF?

Are these questions valid?

Of course they're valid

1. How are you focusing? What settings are on your camera - And what focusing zone are you using? Generally, your best bet is to use the centre focusing point to focus, lock it, and recompose. Tbh, I wouldn't rate the AF on the lens as amazing, but definitely better than the other lenses around. It's quite good at getting a lock in the dark too, but only if you're using the center focusing point.

2. Liveview has its uses, but I wouldn't use it for MF - Your best bet is to concentrate on both the 'boxes' in your viewfinder and your own eye, the boxes should flash red when you are in focus. Getting there is up to your own eye.

3. In a scenario like that, you're going to have to learn to AF off of areas of contrast - Find a highlight against the rest of the darkness and use that to focus on, the lens should be able to lock onto it quite fast.

Solarina

Ive been buzzing with the 50 1.8 for the last year, I love it so much, and at like 50euro off ebay too!

Course I almost cried when I heard& saw the difference of the 1.4 . Not going to afford it any time soon, but eagerly awaiting it!

The best use Ive found for the 1.8/any fstop below 4ish is at parties, like a few have said - the shots you grab without a flash late at night are just so fecking atmospheric! I looove it, even when youre rolling around incoherent to the world, intoxicated to hell - you can get some really mad, interesting shots!

Also, you know, for the sober moments



but now I want the 1.4

NakedDex

Masada wrote: »

I never really got the whole nifty fifty buzz. I must do some research and see what all that is about.

I'll give you a loan of mine so you can catch the prime buzz. I owe you one for that LR300 repair anyway.

dnme

Fajitas! wrote: »

Of course they're valid

1. How are you focusing? What settings are on your camera - And what focusing zone are you using? Generally, your best bet is to use the centre focusing point to focus, lock it, and recompose. Tbh, I wouldn't rate the AF on the lens as amazing, but definitely better than the other lenses around. It's quite good at getting a lock in the dark too, but only if you're using the center focusing point.

2. Liveview has its uses, but I wouldn't use it for MF - Your best bet is to concentrate on both the 'boxes' in your viewfinder and your own eye, the boxes should flash red when you are in focus. Getting there is up to your own eye.

3. In a scenario like that, you're going to have to learn to AF off of areas of contrast - Find a highlight against the rest of the darkness and use that to focus on, the lens should be able to lock onto it quite fast.

Many thanks Fajitas
some great tips here, especially the single focus point and looking for areas of contrast to focus off of.

The reason I raised these question at all was because earlier I tried AF, MF and then MF using zoomed in liveview. I found that the zoomed in liveview gave me super sharp results (I think) compared to the others. So I am now questioning the whle thing. Is this AF all its cracked up to be? Viewfinders suck (Im getting old). I will take on board what you say tho.

Kintarō Hattori

Ah it's such a great lens. Loads of fun to be had from it. Like Fajitas it stays on my camera about 90% of the time.




http://www.flickr.com/photos/liamandagnieszka/4044339601/in/set-72157622542678723/

pete4130

I'll ditto the point made about uing the centre focus point. in low light anythng else just won't lock on.

swingking

I absolutely love my 50mm f1.4 lens

squareballoon

love mine too! love love love.

DeVore

Suffice it to say, I dont want my next lens to focus *at all* ...

DeV.

dnme

This MF v AF thing is getting to me. I have setup a test here.

Camera on tripod
Remote shutter release cable
I have focussed on the side of an electric oil radiator (lines of contrast)

I took one shot using AF (centre point) - AF.jpg
I took another shot using manual focus aided by liveview zoomed in - MF.jpg

Here's the EXIF (identical for both)

Camera Model Canon EOS 50D
Shooting Date/Time 16/11/2009 18:51:29
Shooting Mode Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/50
Av( Aperture Value ) 1.4
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
ISO Speed 400
Lens EF50mm f/1.4 USM
Image Quality RAW
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode One-Shot AF
Picture Style Standard
Sharpness 3
Contrast 0
Saturation 0
Color tone 0
Color Space sRGB
Long exposure noise reduction 0:Off
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Highlight tone priority 0:Disable
Auto Lighting Optimizer 0:Standard
Peripheral illumination correction Disable
File Size 19026KB
Dust Delete Data No
Drive Mode Single shooting
Live View Shooting OFF
Date/Time(UTC)
Latitude
Longitude
Altitude
Geographic coordinate system
Camera Body

Now for the images, These are crops from the RAW files in Canon Photo Professional, The cropped regions are identical. I exported to jpeg and resized by 50% just to be able to upload them to here. No other editing whatsoever.

Auto Focus


Manual Focus

Fajitas!

It does actually look like it needs a callibration - Are they 100% crops?

Valentia

Excellent thread. Might just take the plunge for Christmas.

It does look like the lens needs calabrating. If it was the other way around you could blame the diaopter adjustment.

dnme

Fajitas! wrote: »

It does actually look like it needs a callibration - Are they 100% crops?

No 50% crops. I'm gonna try it again now at low ISO and decent WB. This time I'm gonna use the laptop and EOS Utility to remote control the exposures.

dnme

I have done this test again. I have kept the lens at 1.4 for consistency, In order to get the ISO down I had to reduce the ambient light so I switched off the overhead bulb. I think the problem is very clear in this test.

This time I have cropped at 100% for clarity and reliability so please forgive the large files.

Tell me, what do you mean be calibration? Is this something that needs to be done by a technician/canon? what are we calibrating - the camera or the lens?

Many thanks

Exif (same for both)

Shooting Date/Time 16/11/2009 20:21:52
Shooting Mode Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 0.5
Av( Aperture Value ) 1.4
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
ISO Speed 100
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF50mm f/1.4 USM
Focal Length 50.0mm
Image Size 4752x3168
Image Quality RAW
Flash Off
FE lock OFF
White Balance Mode Tungsten
AF Mode One-Shot AF
Picture Style Standard
Sharpness 3
Contrast 0
Saturation 0
Color tone 0
Color Space sRGB
Long exposure noise reduction 0:Off
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Drive Mode Single shooting

Auto Focus (using single AF point at centre)


Manual Focus (using Liveview to zoom 10x, then manually adjusting)

Curran

Valentia wrote:

Excellent thread. Might just take the plunge for Christmas.

Im agree - happy to see this thread pop up, as I too am considering getting it for Chrimbo!!

Has anyone had any problems with their USM; when focusing the outer ring getting tight or sticky??
I was reading on Flickr, that some people were saying the (micro) USM in the lens is a bit weak - it can be damaged easily if it is bumped around a bit (I dont mean dropping it; they were saying that they were very careful with it but was getting damaged in their bags, basically with little force)
They were recommending that you should buy a lens body mounted hood for it, and never take it off or risk the lens being damaged - never let the face get nudged, bumped, tapped etc was the common reply. As its a micro USM and not the ring USM it doesnt take to kindly to mild rough treatment.
This has kinda made me think twice about it - but the build quality of the f/1.8, isnt supposed to be great as it was designed back in late 1990! Althought the f/1.4 is a based on a 37 year old design that was updated in '93 - Ive been doing some reading as you can tell Source - dpreview

Valentia

That seems to confirm it though I'm no expert.

Calibrating is usually done by Canon on the lens but some new cameras have a facility to store lens corrections for different lenses. The 5D MkII does but I don't know which others do.

Fionn

it's probably a back/front focus problem
see here to test it.
I'm not sure if you can calibrate a 5D mk 1.


I got rid of my nifty fifty 1.8.


but got a 35mm 1.4 super lens

after you discover how to control the DoF

Mycroft H

Ive calibrated my Sony a200 myself, the 50mm f1.4 was out by quite a bit, which i hadnt noticed with my kit lens.......

I wonder if its possibe to do the adjustment yourself with the Canon?


Btw i love the 50mm f1,4, even more on my old Minolta Dynax film camera

dnme

Found the calibration feature on the Canon 50D. It's in menus

C.FnIII Autofocus/Drive, 7. AF Micro adjustment

I've read a few tutorials on the web as to how to calibrate and went with this one
http://www.flickr.com/photos/encouragement/3211046757/

I'm finding that the Lens is awful at -20, ok at 0 and best at +20 but still not sharp. +20 is the limit so I'm wondering what to do now.

EDIT: Actually just done the calibration again with a little more light and now the sweet spot seems to be at 0.

AnCatDubh

dumb ass question but i'll ask anyhow, how are you stabilising your test setup? hand held / tripod / fixed surface???

Only reason I ask is that I went through a period of thinking the 50mm was very soft at f1.7 but in reality there were two things at play (a) it's known sharpness was going to be at f5.6 so everything else was going to be a compromise, and (b) there was an amazing difference at f1.7 between handheld and stabilised tripod / fixed surface shooting. Moral of the story for me was - must try harder.

I discovered the above after downloading lens calibration cards, reading up the manual on custom adjustments, etc.., etc... Sometimes the simpliest solutions can be the best.

(I know its a dumb ass question... so move along now, nothing to see )

dnme

AnCatDubh wrote: »

dumb ass question but i'll ask anyhow, how are you stabilising your test setup? hand held / tripod / fixed surface???

Only reason I ask is that I went through a period of thinking the 50mm was very soft at f1.7 but in reality there were two things at play (a) it's known sharpness was going to be at f5.6 so everything else was going to be a compromise, and (b) there was an amazing difference at f1.7 between handheld and stabilised tripod / fixed surface shooting. Moral of the story for me was - must try harder.

I discovered the above after downloading lens calibration cards, reading up the manual on custom adjustments, etc.., etc... Sometimes the simpliest solutions can be the best.

(I know its a dumb ass question... so move along now, nothing to see )

Decent Tripod all the way. But in a room with poor overhead lighting so WB is tricky and aparently that can affect calibration. I have actually disable calibration (AF Microadjust) because 0 seems to be the sweet(ish) spot.

kumate_champ07

whats the story with all these 50mm threads all of a sudden?

padocon

Just got the 1.8. I miss being able to zoom in and out! Now I have to go far and close, thats the down side.

Fajitas!

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

whats the story with all these 50mm threads all of a sudden?

Cameras are usually supplied with a zoom lens as the kit lens these days, the 50mm is usually recommended as the first prime one should buy. Having an aperture as fast as 1.4 or 1.8 can be quite an adventure if you've been used to a 3.5 - 5.6 lens.

No harm in people being happy with their lenses

mikeanywhere

Fajitas! wrote: »

the 50mm is usually recommended as the first prime one should buy. Having an aperture as fast as 1.4 or 1.8 can be quite an adventure if you've been used to a 3.5 - 5.6 lens.

Especially when you consider the cost of the 1.8 being as cheap as it is too - perfect sense!!

kumate_champ07

Fajitas! wrote: »

Cameras are usually supplied with a zoom lens as the kit lens these days, the 50mm is usually recommended as the first prime one should buy. Having an aperture as fast as 1.4 or 1.8 can be quite an adventure if you've been used to a 3.5 - 5.6 lens.

No harm in people being happy with their lenses

I know all that but I havent seen so much interest in them here before and theres a few of these threads that are basically the same discussing and posting photos from a 50mm fast prime

Fajitas!

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

I know all that but I havent seen so much interest in them here before and theres a few of these threads that are basically the same discussing and posting photos from a 50mm fast prime

Ah there's always been threads popping up on the 50mm's - In fact, I'd say there's more threads on 50mm's than any other lens.

There's different questions in each thread, like the OP having a difficulty with his lens front/back focusing. They're not all the exact same.

Also, if someone is getting used to a lens, no harm in posting a few pictures to show what can be done with it, where its weaknesses are, softness, vignetting, etc, or when and where it works best.

We're only trying to help the OP, bu if you think the should all be merged, I'd say report the post and let the moderators decide. Personally, I don't see the problem