canon 50mm 1.4 or 85mm 1.8

kokolino23

kokolino23

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Angelo
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I still can't make my mind between those 2. I might consider a sigma 50mm 1.4 as every review says is better than canon. But I was thinking to go for a 85mm instead.

I mainly gonna use it for taking pictures from a short distance.

THANKS!
 
I would have said the 85mm all the way until you said short distance. 85mm on a crop can be done but itv is not ideal in close situations. You may have to consider the 50mm on that basis alone.
 
Just how short? For real closeups, consider the 100/2.8 Macro instead.. What exactly are you shooting?

The 85mm does have a longer minimum focusing distance (85cm) than the 50/1.4 (45cm), but then again you are standing further back to get the same framing. So it's better to compare maximum magnification numbers which are 0.13x for the 85mm and 0.15x for the 50mm.. so the difference is very small in terms of how you can fill the frame, but the perspective will be flatter with the 85mm. The macro gets 1.0x of course.
 
That makes sense. I won't do macro, that's for sure. I'll use it for portrait and most probably for taking pics from over 0.5m even 1m I'd say.
We'll have our first child soon and I can't wait to get some nice shoots.
 
It depends what you want from it - I am guessing things to do with people.

I only have two lenses - a wide angle, and an 85. The wide angle stays on the camera a lot of the time and it's pretty much all I use for my urban photos. The 85 is mostly on the camera when I am shooting people/street and it does its job well. For a crop body, which you have, the equivalent would be the 50mm, and when I had a 50 on crop I liked what it produced as much as I like my 85 now.

The main differences to consider between the two are sharpness and build quality - I find my 85 to be built considerably better than the 50 I had, and it also appears to be sharper than the 50.

If I was to find myself back on a crop sensor camera, I would be lost without a 50. Considering the negatives of the Canon 50, I'd look at the Sigma 50. I haven't used the Sigma myself, but if what I read about it on the web is true, it's a very good lens.

If I was to go back to a 50 now on full frame, I'd either get the 1.8 version or the Sigma 1.4. Canon's 1.4 is not enough of an improvement over the 1.8 to warrant the cost, and doesn't cost a great deal less than the Sigma second hand.
 
I reckon either sigma 50mm 1.4 or canon 85mm 1.8 will do a good job for me. I'm only learning at the moment and untill I know how to use the camera better I can have anyone of those 2.
Thanks a lot for the advice provided.
 
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