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.

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