If the nifty fifty is such a great lens......

Recession? A lot of people buy them for the wrong reasons...and find that 50mm just isn't a focal length they will use much!
 
Regarding the CANON NIFTY....

It's not great. It's horrible. But it is cheap, sharp and has a fast aperture. Unfortunately, build quality sucks, AF sucks, MF sucks and bokeh sucks. My first lens was Canon's 17-85 lens, with USM focusing. I thought, naively, that the f/1.8 prime would own my slow zoom lens for focus performance. Boy, was I in for a shock! The nifty is cack by comparison.

For some people it is a good way to experience shallow DOF without spending £zillions. Some people are happy to stick with the nifty. Many progress beyond it. I have one and it never gets used. I just can't get on with the focusing limitations. I have since bought the 50/1.4 for more reliable (though still not stellar) focusing. I'm also not big on prime lenses generally, much preferring the flexibility of f/2.8 IS zooms for 99% of my shooting.

If I could be bothered my nifty would be up for sale too, but I can't be bothered.
 
Is it only good for close up photos or would it be ok for a walk around with the kids on holiday and for the club houses at night. If I were to get one, this is what Id be planning on using it for.
 
tdodd said:
It's not great. It's horrible. But it is cheap, sharp and has a fast aperture. Unfortunately, build quality sucks, AF sucks, MF sucks and bokeh sucks.

For some people it is a good way to experience shallow DOF without spending £zillions. Some people are happy to stick with the nifty. Many progress beyond it. I have one and it never gets used. I just can't get on with the focusing limitations. I have since bought the 50/1.4 for more reliable (though still not stellar) focusing. I'm also not big on prime lenses generally, much preferring the flexibility of f/2.8 IS zooms for 99% of my shooting.

If I could be bothered my nifty would be up for sale too, but I can't be bothered.
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Thanks for your honest opinion. I could come to your house and you could donate me yours if you liked....no hastle at all lol
 
Hysteria_UK said:
Thanks for your honest opinion. I could come to your house and you could donate me yours if you liked....no hastle at all lol
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Tims is a Canon lens, you need a Nikon fit ;)

The Nikon f1.8 is fine for what you outlined, sharp and good contrast, nice colour.
 
Its a love or hate lens really, I like them, buy one, hardly use it, sell it, then months later get another

Had 5 so far :lol:
 
Hysteria_UK said:
Is it only good for close up photos or would it be ok for a walk around with the kids on holiday and for the club houses at night. If I were to get one, this is what Id be planning on using it for.
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Personally I think a 50mm prime would be rather limiting for shooting kids on holiday as you simply don't have the focal length flexibility to frame your shot as you would wish without running back and forth, but running back and forth changes perspective, so it is not the correct solution to framing your subject/scene.

Unless you want "creative" shallow DOF shots you won't find f/1.8 to be much help outdoors in good light - f/2.8 or even f/4-5.6 would do you fine.

If you're using a crop body camera, which most everybody buying the 50/1.8 will be, 50mm is really a pretty long focal length and you may struggle to get enough of the scene into view indoors. There is a good reason why so many standard kit lenses are of the 18-55 sort of focal length. That 18mm end really counts for something.

The following relates to the CANON NIFTY....

For indoors shooting or poor light, while the f/1.8 would appear attractive, the AF performance is not good and may well let you down at exactly the times when you need it to work quickly and accurately.

If you want a good quality general purpose lens at moderate cost then look at the Tamron 17-50/2.8. An alternative for Canon would be the new(ish) 18-55 IS lens (not the old non IS version). If you want the mutt's nuts then it would be the 17-55/2.8 IS USM, which has everything you could want in one package, but at a price! FWIW I have the 17-55/2.8 IS USM and it is one sweet lens - very flexible in any kind of lighting and the lens of choice for wedding pros shooting on crop bodies.

Other options, depending on purse and needs might be the Sigma 17-70/2.8-4.5 or the Canon 17-85/4-5.6 IS USM.
 
The thing with a 50mm standard lens is that on a 35mm or full frame camera, it gives the closest FOV and perspective to what you actually see with the human eye so it was always recommended as a good beginners lens largely for that reason. Used on a 1.6 crop sensor of course it has a FOV more like 80mm so the natural FOV argument goes out of the window rather, although 80mm gives a better working distance for portraits.

The nifty 50 has a fast max aperture though so it's a fast lens for silly money for those available light shots in low light. It's cheap and plasticky and produces awful 50p piece shaped oof highlights due to the reduced niumber of aperture blades compared to the 1.4 version which produces nice round ones but costs a lot more wonga - no surprises there then! ;)

It's a great lens for silly money as long as you realise it's shortcomings.
 
Its good to play with, and a reasonable price, simplez!
 
Cant speak for the 50mm 1.8 but I have the 50mm 1.4
My Canon 5D was my first SLR ... and my 50mm 1.4 was my first lens.
Dont get me wrong, I did feel the limitations of a fixed prime, but as a first lens it gave me a pretty good idea of what lenses would suit me next, and I certainly used it for a wide variety of subjects.

Its a lightweight little lens that I always chuck in the bag where ever I go, and often still find a use for it, especially in clubs.



One of my first landscapes ......

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One a bit closer ....

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One of my first portraits.....

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One of my recent club shots...

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I like it, but might upgrade to the 1.4 after hearing the above. Comes across as a amature lens :(
 
benwall said:
I like it, but might upgrade to the 1.4 after hearing the above. Comes across as a amature lens :(
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Be careful not to confuse comments about Canon's nifty with Nikon's offering. I have no idea what Nikon's lens is like by comparison with Canon's. It might be terrific. Also, does it matter if the lens is a bit "amateur" if it gives you results you are happy with?
 
I love my nifty, but I do realise where it fails. Everyone has one because they're cheap and cheerful, but obviously, if you can afford the 1.4 then go for that! :)

Also, must say - InaGlo, what a stunning model in the first portrait, beautiful!
 
Glo's second poppy shot shows those nice round oof highlights beautifully. My 50mm 1.2 chops one edge off the circle at wide apertures! :gag:
 
Exactly, do what most people do... buy it, see how you get on with it. If you like, keep, if you don't it will be snapped up in the classifieds with a minimal drop in money. I've a Nikon version and get on with it just great, although the bokeh is harsh it depends on the BG at the time too.
 
tdodd said:
Be careful not to confuse comments about Canon's nifty with Nikon's offering. I have no idea what Nikon's lens is like by comparison with Canon's. It might be terrific. Also, does it matter if the lens is a bit "amateur" if it gives you results you are happy with?
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Yeah your right. I'm very happy with it. Think the next upgrade I want from the 50 is a 85 1.4. But thats a way off yet lol.

sdb123 said:
You'd get more benefit from a shorter focal length then a faster lens with your camera IMHO.
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Could you elaborate a little? I'm lost.
 
I often hear these complaints about the focussing on the canon nifty but can honestly say it's never let me down and I only ever use it crap light really.
 
a1ex2001 said:
I often hear these complaints about the focussing on the canon nifty but can honestly say it's never let me down and I only ever use it crap light really.
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Have you ever used a lens with ring USM focusing? Have you ever tried to track a moving target with the nifty, using AI Servo - a bird, a dog, a running child?

Trust me, compared to proper ring USM focusing the focus in the nifty is truly horrible (slow, fidgetty, noisey, imprecise), and the MF ring is so tiny and awkward to control that it's really no better, perhaps worse.

Try an 85/1.8 when you get a chance and see what you then think of the nifty's focusing.
 
I bought mine and sold it on 2nd hand for little loss as I recall
only sold it to fund the 50mm Canon 1.4
I liked the 50mm, lovely lens to play with
it is a bit of a toy but also it's a great lens to have which makes you think a bit more rather than just zooming.
although ideally for this sort of thing you'd go 30mm cropped

If you have only 2-3 lenses, and one is the kit lens from a canon package, then the 50mm 1.8 makes a lot of sense for budget and options
 
tdodd said:
Have you ever used a lens with ring USM focusing? Have you ever tried to track a moving target with the nifty, using AI Servo?

Trust me, compared to proper ring USM focusing the focus in the nifty is truly horrible (slow, fidgetty, noisey, imprecise), and the MF ring is so tiny and awkward to control that it's really no better, perhaps worse.
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I never said it was lightning quick, silent or on a par with a top sepc L lens but the way you and others on here go on about it you'd think it struggled if you tried to take a portrait of a static model in anything other than midday sunshine. The AF is adequate for the lens, I paid 50 quid for mine which won't buy you much in this world or expensive toys.
 
tdodd said:
If you want the mutt's nuts then it would be the 17-55/2.8 IS USM, which has everything you could want in one package, but at a price! FWIW I have the 17-55/2.8 IS USM and it is one sweet lens - very flexible in any kind of lighting and the lens of choice for wedding pros shooting on crop bodies.
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This was the conclusion I came to. Originally I bought a 40D with the EF-S 17-85 but we found that the lens was too slow for low light. Having read a lot about the use of the nifty fifty I realised that 50mm was going to be too long for a low light lens on a 1.6 crop.

That led me to look at the 28mm options from canon. Then I realised that if I sold the 17-85 and added the money to what we were about to spend on the 28mm we could get the EF-S 17-55 f2.8 which turned out to be a much better solution.
 
a1ex2001 said:
I never said it was lightning quick, silent or on a par with a top sepc L lens but the way you and others on here go on about it you'd think it struggled if you tried to take a portrait of a static model in anything other than midday sunshine. The AF is adequate for the lens, I paid 50 quid for mine which won't buy you much in this world or expensive toys.
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Fine, but the opening gambit for this thread was "if the nifty is such a great lens..." All that some of us are doing is presenting our opinion that in some ways it is not great at all, far from it in fact.

Perhaps it's great, for the price, but it certainly isn't great in the great scheme of things.
 
The nifty fifty can be had for £70

I can't see any other fast lens that cheap and at f2.8 its pin sharp, and a bit soft wide open. I'll put up with slow focusing and its other restrictions to save myself £200+
 
I once bought the canon 50mm f1.8 lens, but it looked ridiculous on a 1 series body, that I quickly sold it and bought a 50mm F1.4, which looks more in proportion to a 1 body.

It's one of the sharpest lens I own, perhaps not up there with my 85 1.2 or 135 F2, but beats any zoom I've owned.

It's relatively cheap, and like Glo, it's so lightweight that it always gets chucked in the bag.
 
I bought a 50mm EF lens many years ago to fit my EOS 650 and I used it a fair bit. Roll forward to when EOS digitals came around and the 1.5x crop factor made the lens somewhat redundant.

I like the fact that for under £100 on most platforms you can get a lens that offers much shallower DOF than standard f/3.4-4.5 zooms ever will, but let's be honest, it's a focal length on a 1.5x crop camera that is totally limiting; it's neither wide-angle nor telephoto. It's somewhere in the middle.

If I have £100 lying around (hardly likely with a baby on the way) thn I may be inclined to buy one for the shallow DOF alone, but as a walkabout len to be used for 'reportage-style' photography, surely a prime 28mm or 35mm would be far better, if more expensive? They would give an angle of view more like the 50mm would on 35mm format.

On this site people harp on about how good these lenses are, how 'essential' they are (most 'what lens' threads have a mention of a 50mm in them) but when it comes to backing up why they are so essential with a shot to prove it, the results are generally lacklustre and to be honest, crap. Call me cynical but it seems like a bit of the emporer's new clothes syndrome to me.

I think people buy one because they're told to/expected to but then realise that it's actually just a totally mediocre piece of kit on a DSLR...
 
They are good BECAUSE they are limiting.

Yes, the bokeh isn't the best you'll see, but it's far from bad.

However, being restricted to a fixed focal length of mid telephoto (on a crop body anyway) forces the user to think more carefully about the shot.

It also encourages people to move their feet and not automatically zoom to get the shot - i'd consider this good practise and whilst some situations are not suitable for this approach, it does get you thinking more.

Oh, and considering most users will be coming to it from a kit lens, the shallow DOF is going to be a real treat!
 
benwall said:
Could you elaborate a little? I'm lost.
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Yes. The 30mm/35mm focal length is much more benficial (IMO) on a cropped sensor camera; go for the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 or even better the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 with a D90. :)
 
Hysteria_UK said:
.....why are there so many in the classifieds?
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Because people read rave reviews and think "nifty fifty" :gag: means it's something special, some fantastic, mythical piece of bargain gear that will be all things to all men.

Then they buy one and discover that 50mm isn't a particularly useful focal length on a crop body and that the iq isn't as wonderful as they thought it would be wide open.

If you try and explain that you really need to stop it down a bit to get a really sharp shot, you get met with blank looks and questions along the lines of "why should I have to stop my 1.8 lens down to 2.8 for it to be sharp when I could just have bought a 2.8 lens in the first place?" :bang:
 
specialman said:
I bought a 50mm EF lens many years ago to fit my EOS 650 and I used it a fair bit. Roll forward to when EOS digitals came around and the 1.5x crop factor made the lens somewhat redundant.

I like the fact that for under £100 on most platforms you can get a lens that offers much shallower DOF than standard f/3.4-4.5 zooms ever will, but let's be honest, it's a focal length on a 1.5x crop camera that is totally limiting; it's neither wide-angle nor telephoto. It's somewhere in the middle.

If I have £100 lying around (hardly likely with a baby on the way) thn I may be inclined to buy one for the shallow DOF alone, but as a walkabout len to be used for 'reportage-style' photography, surely a prime 28mm or 35mm would be far better, if more expensive? They would give an angle of view more like the 50mm would on 35mm format.

On this site people harp on about how good these lenses are, how 'essential' they are (most 'what lens' threads have a mention of a 50mm in them) but when it comes to backing up why they are so essential with a shot to prove it, the results are generally lacklustre and to be honest, crap. Call me cynical but it seems like a bit of the emporer's new clothes syndrome to me.

I think people buy one because they're told to/expected to but then realise that it's actually just a totally mediocre piece of kit on a DSLR...
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A 50mm on a 1.6 crop camera gives a (virtual) 80mm F 1.8 (or 1.4), which is a good focal length for portraits, why else would folk (including myself) splash out good money on buying a focal length of 85 mm (on a ff body) for use such as this.

I don't think glo's example above are crap at all, particularly the portrait shot shows how good a 50mm can be.
 
My worries with example photos are that they are rarely straight out the camera. Sometimes it shows more of a skill with PP than it does with IQ etc. They are good shots though, especially the portrait. Also the Bridget Jones lookalike shows how it works at a certain distance
 
The Canon version is noted for not being up to the Nikon version on this lens, and some say that the earlier Japan made ones are better than the now China made ones. All I can say is that my Nikon China version is VERY sharp at f/2 and above, and for head shots you need at least that for a realistic DoF. It still comes down to the fact that for the money it's hard to beat :shrug:
 
I like the idea of using primes to make you think and improve your photography but I don't think the majority of 50mm advocates think like you. They buy because it's something everyone else seems to talk about and then they realise that it is a limiting focal length that's neither here nor there (and totally out of their zoom lens comfort zone). I'd even go so far to say that they're lazy. The DOF and bokeh argument is (sort of) valid but come on, if you wanted to limit yourself then you can quite easily walk around with your zoom set to 50mm to get the same shot.

Glo's shots are okay, nowt special but that's my opinion and that's purely subjective. I doubt everyone's rushing out to buy 'portrait lenses so they all have (effectively) 85mm f/1.8s. I've read several threads over the last month where someone has asked what lenses they need and someone always pipes up with the 50mm as the answer to all their woes. Yes, a limiting focal length can teach you about using your legs to change your viewpoint and all that, but I am convinced that the majority of 50mm advocates on here only use thm because they're a bit gimmicky, a bit fashionable.
 
its a great lens to have in the bag, for quite a while I had a 50mm and an 80-200 on a crop sensor, I did feel the gap in the range and bought a standard and a wide angle zoom when I saw a bargain, but my 50mm still gets more use than both of them together.

It's a pig to focus in low light but lets me shoot where I couldn't at f2.8.

I really like the prime experience, I like the way it makes me think about composition it is soooooo much sharper than my 2.8 zoom (tamron) at 2.8 - 5.6 at least. It's small and light and dammed cheap. All in a great lens and I won't sell mine until I have a 50mm f1.4 to replace it with as the focussing is it's greatest failing
 
I've had the both the Canon version and the Nikon versions, the Nikon version has a lot better build quality and produces the better results especially the F1.4, the Canon MKII build quality feels terrible and the focus is grim and the IQ on a 50D body leaves a lot to be desired. On a Crop body i also think 50mm is a little to long........
 
A lot of it is historical, when I were a lad the standard lens on an SLR body was a 50mm, an easy focal lens for the optical engineer to design, and for the factory to make.

I have the 50mm f1.8, also 35mm f2 and 85mm.

The 35mm f2 spends more time on the camera than either of the other two, the 50mm the least, but that should not lead you to think that the 50mm is no good, it just means that I prefer the other focal lengths.

When they were around £70 new it was a no brainer, light and sharp, and cheap, now they are over £100 that is not so true.

My advice would be to save up for the 35mm f2, much more useful focal length on a cropped sensor.
 
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