Nifty Fifty Tips

Hi guys, I got my first DSLR in February and just got a 50mm 1.8 Canon lens today. I'm heading to Stockholm for the summer in a week and I'd like to get the hang of the new lens before I go away so I'm comfortable using it out and about- does anyone have any tips for me while I'm practicing with it over the next few days to help me get a feel for it? I'd greatly appreciate any input as I'm new enough to SLR photography

defrule

piratequeen wrote: »

Hi guys, I got my first DSLR in February and just got a 50mm 1.8 Canon lens today. I'm heading to Stockholm for the summer in a week and I'd like to get the hang of the new lens before I go away so I'm comfortable using it out and about- does anyone have any tips for me while I'm practicing with it over the next few days to help me get a feel for it? I'd greatly appreciate any input as I'm new enough to SLR photography

You're probably going to take a ton of photos with the aperture wide at 1.8. The bokeh is nice at 1.8 but the sweetspot of the 50 is probably around f4-5.6ish. At these apertures you'll get superb sharpness.

If you want to shoot macro, you can flip the 50 around. You'll have to manually hold the lens in position but you magnify spiders and stuff this way.

Shoot raw, unless you're low on card space, raw is just amazing.

Oh btw, bring your kit lens and well. The chances are you will be taking scenic shots and the 50 simply isn't wide enough for that.

condra

Yep, 1.8 gets boring, and optical quality improves around the f4 mark. My advice would be, don't use 1.8 unless it's meant to be a soft cuddley portrait.

inkedpt

Hi PirateQueen,

The 50mm lens IMH are quit good for just about anything. Just because the focal length isn't the most suitable for landscapes doesn't mean you can not frame them, in fact it would give you the challenge to find different angles to take the shot you're looking for, and that can't be bad :cool:
For portraits there's nothing bad in there, same goes for places with low light.
Tips... well, with camera's dial on Av select f/2.8 for either portraits or those photos that you want to isolate the subject from the background. If it's landscapes close the aperture to higher number f/16 up. During daylight keep your ISO between 100/400 in dark places or night time just change it to auto.
The thing about this or any other lens without IS is "camera shake" it can be avoided using a tripod, drinking less coffee, or if you see the shutter speed below 1/100 (assuming you have a crop sensor) adjusting the settings.
Other posts you'll give you more guidelines but the main thing is... have fun, take your shots, don't worry to much.

run_Forrest_run

my tip: take about 5 steps back.

Homer

Also be careful of depth of field when shooting in low light at F1.8 as it will be dramatically reduced the closer you are to the subject.
For example... At 50mm, F1.8 shooting from 10ft away your depth of field will be 0.81ft, with 0.39ft in front of the subject and 0.42 behind.
Get closer to your subjects and you can start to get ridicuosly small depth of field which will impact on your pictures in a bad way!

magicbastarder

or a good way, depending on what you want.

is there a depth of field scale on the lens?

Homer

no but there are online depth of field calculators and apps that will give you the depth of field based on your camera, focal length and distance from subject.