Agree. You have to stand far far away if you want to take group photo with 50mm.

End up I didn't always use it.

Haha that's actually what I am afraid of, the amount of moving around and walking with 50mm would be a hassle.

It depends whether the location allows for it and what kind of effect you looking for. I always use 50mm for group photo whenever location allowed for. That including group photo of about 10 people in a dark ballroom. By the way, I don't use flash for these photo normally.

But still the Canon 50mm 1.4 gobbles light. It opens up a world of indoor photography that is not possible with a 4.0 lens. Definitely in my "to buy list".

I agonized over the 1.4 vs. the 1.8 versions of this lens. It seem to me that the additional stop does provide more shooting options. Often I'm shooting at the edge of acceptable shutter speed, and juggling both aperture and ISO. Many reviews comparing the two talk about build quality, focus motor speed/noise, etc, but the bottom line for me is the extra stop, is totally worth it?

If I'd like to shoot indoors without a flash, should I get the 1.4?

This post has been edited by reevanshirls: Feb 6 2014, 01:55 PM

The stop difference is actually very minimal. What you get with the 1.4 are the FTM, USM and much faster / accurate focus lock.

It's just 0.4 stop different. For me, f1.8 is more than enough for low light. 50mm f1.8 takes some time to focus and the focus ring is always moving. And the noise during AF is audible. Other than that, there are not much differences compared with 50mm f1.4

This post has been edited by Xiia0Ban: Feb 6 2014, 02:06 PM

I had 2 x 50mm F1.8 before buying the 50mm F1.4. The main reason was for the focusing speed needed for wedding assignment. the F1.8 focusing is a bit slow and noisy ( its some times alerted the person and they won't look natural when they started to look out where the noise comes from )

Also what about the depth of field, is it much much more better on the 1.4? I assume that it should be, or is it more or less the same with the 1.8?

I feel this lens would be good for some street photography, don't you think?

This post has been edited by reevanshirls: Feb 6 2014, 02:17 PM

say only 1.4 and 1.8 - actually both of them you shoot wide open, they're going to give you soft photos. in the end also have to stop down to f2.0 onwards.

Haha yeah 1.8 does makes some weird f***ed-up noices!

Again, this is very subjective to your style and your objects / composition. A lot will go for stops down and hence F1.4 or F1.8 does not make any different to them since some may only shoot stop downed to F2, F2.8 or more. For myself and my boss, we mostly shoot at F1.4 in low light or even day time. So, its boils down to what is your own expectation on the images.

F1.4, F1.8 shooting something that is like 10 meters away may not have big different in DOF but something just 1 meter away will have some differences for sure

Due to vignetting is it?

I think in bottom line is, if you have extra budget, go for F1.4, if you have ok budget, go for F1.4. If you have very very tight budget, go for F1.8.

no. they're all soft wide open.

nothing to do with vignetting.

True that....I always stop to at least F2 on my 1.8 especially when off center focusing. This makes me wish to get the 1.4 just to stop down to 1.8 lol....

Next step up is 2.5 on my 60d and that just really makes it even less appealing bokeh wise. Sharpness all great once you reach 2.8

I almost always shoot with flash.

I might adding a bit as goldfries said,
the softness comes from the shallow DOP+lenses design limitation.
All lenses take its softest image at its widest apeture. The sharpest image from 50mm is around
f5.6-8 if I'am not mistaken.

around that, usually best at 2 - 3 stops down from the widest, which is around f/4 to f/5.6.

not that it matters, for product shoot I use f/8 - f/11 on those 50mm.

70D is APS-C format, 50mm will be equivalent to about 80mm in full frame format. Thus, it's not equivalent to our eyes.

buy a 35f2 ~ 35=56mm for apsc