Planning to get an EF50mm f/1.4 USM lens to replace my 70D kit lens, should I or should I not?

What type of photos normally you take? Landscape/Portrait/Macro and etc...
Different type of photography use different type of lens.

Portrait bro!

Do bear in mind that 50mm on 70d is almost equivalent with what you're seeing right now. Imagine you put a frame in front of your eyes. You capture exactly what you see.

Somehow you might found out that 50mm is not wide enough. This happens to me as well.

For me,I will get a 50mm f1.8 instead and one more additional lens.

Just my own opinion.

This post has been edited by Xiia0Ban: Feb 6 2014, 12:01 AM

I'm also into some long exposure photography, and also EF50mm f/1.4 USM lets in 60% more light then then 1.8 which I logically assumed would be better under low light situations. Should I just get both?

You won't need 50mm f1.8 when you already have 50mm f1.4.
Both are good for low light but 50mm f1.4 due to bigger aperture that able to allow more light to go into the sensor.
50mm f1.4 is much more faster than 50mm f1.8 due to 50mm f1.4 is using USM which allow silent and quick AF.

I assume that you have the budget for 50mm f1.4, why not get 50mm f1.8 and other lenses as well.

This post has been edited by Xiia0Ban: Feb 6 2014, 12:30 AM

Thx for the advice, helped heaps - cheers mate!

This post has been edited by reevanshirls: Feb 6 2014, 12:33 AM

Maybe you should go and try out the lenses before you buy.

Definitely would do that, 50mm 1.4 sound like a good lens, but we’ll just have to see about that.

I have 35 F2.0, 50 F1.8 and 50 F1.4

- Personally like 50 F1.4 for portraiture, low light photography
- 50mm may be too long for 7D as walk around
- My wife prefers to have 35mm full time on the 7D vs 50mm

just my 2 cents

This post has been edited by bbear: Feb 6 2014, 10:52 AM

Too long in term of the focal length? You may find 50mm is not wide enough sometimes.

Yes, both are the same things, just one in Focal Length vs one in Viewing Angle

Another thing to take note.

Both 50mm F1.4 and F1.8 has longer minimum focus distance in comparison to the 35mm F2.0 that i have. My wife is a Travel and Food blogger and at times, 7D with 50mm is not possible to take closer photo of the foods. The 35mm F2.0 does allows her to do so with getting nearer to the foods she is photographing

This post has been edited by bbear: Feb 6 2014, 11:04 AM

consider the sigma 50mm 1.4. You can google for reviews between the canon and the sigma version. i chose sigma in the end. on a cropped tho, 50mm is not what "your eyes see". thats on full frame. if u wanna get "as your eyes see" its more like 30-35mm on a cropped.

Really? How come my 70d and 50mm is equal to what my eyes see. That's confusing.

the field of view of a 50mm is narrow, its not what your eyes see, its towards telephoto a bit already. but put that same lense on a 50mm then its considered "as the eye sees it". And the equivalent of that is the 30-35mm lense on a crop.

i should rephrase from "as the eye sees" to "standard lense", as the debate on what is "as the eye sees" is way too deep.

In term of the angle, you're correct. What I'm talking about is in term of the focal length.

Sorry that I'm not so good in explaining.

Well 50mm is equivalent to 80mm, pretty much on the telephoto side, awesome for portraits.

The build is good as well so you probably won't regret buying one.

But if you're going to use it on a daily basis it's gonna be quite a hassle. Have you considered getting one of those 35mm f/1.4 lens from Sigma? It translates to roughly 56mm equivalent and would be more suitable for indoor or daily portrait use.


This post has been edited by memster: Feb 6 2014, 11:42 AM

Keep the kit lens and then treat the 50mm f1.4 lens as a specialty lens. I have the cheaper 50mm F1.8 lens and it takes great pictures and great indoor portraits.

But when its like when you taking a portrait of someone and then all their friends come along for a group picture. Group picture with a 50mm prime is no fun.

50mm on crop is not a lens that can deal with every situation. So yeah treat it as a specialty lens.

The Canon EF 50mm 1.4 is really nice. It performs a lot better than the 1.8 in terms of speed and accuracy, much less hunting and you have FTM with it.

I went for the Canon unit because Sigma unit is problematic, usually the front focusing / back focusing issue. Furthermore I have no confidence in Sigma's local distributor service but Canon is top-notched.