Which nifty fifty ?

J

jb1972

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Jon
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I'm looking to buy myself a fast 50mm lens for use indoors in iffy lighting conditions. Often to be used taking photos of indoor show jumping, so needs to be something with a fast focusing.

I've got a Canon 40D but have aspirations to upgrade to a full frame body at some point (maybe if a 5D Mk3 appears in a year or two), so am looking for an EF mount lens.

I've ruled out the Canon f1.8 as don't like the plastic build and it's not USM so don't think the focusing is fast enough. So am looking at the Canon f1.4 USM or the Sigma F1.4 HSM. The Sigma seems to be about £50 more than the canon, and was wondering if it was worth the extra cash.

So does anyone have any experience of either lens ? is the Sigma worth the extra cash ? is either any better than the other on a full frame verses cropped sensor ?

any advice would be very helpful
 
I have the "Nifty Fifty" and am very happy with it - the focussing is fast and quiet - at least on my version - and best of all it's cheap and very sharp.

I'd personally recommend you to buy one on here (about £60) and try it - if you still don't like it you could always re-sell it with virtually no loss.

And of course it also works on FF.
 
jb1972 said:
I'm looking to buy myself a fast 50mm lens for use indoors in iffy lighting conditions. Often to be used taking photos of indoor show jumping, so needs to be something with a fast focusing.

I've got a Canon 40D but have aspirations to upgrade to a full frame body at some point (maybe if a 5D Mk3 appears in a year or two), so am looking for an EF mount lens.

I've ruled out the Canon f1.8 as don't like the plastic build and it's not USM so don't think the focusing is fast enough. So am looking at the Canon f1.4 USM or the Sigma F1.4 HSM. The Sigma seems to be about £50 more than the canon, and was wondering if it was worth the extra cash.

So does anyone have any experience of either lens ? is the Sigma worth the extra cash ? is either any better than the other on a full frame verses cropped sensor ?

any advice would be very helpful
Click to expand...

Perhaps I can sway you back to the nifty fifty 1.8. It's awfully cheap and still very good quality.

Look:





The DOF is sensational as is the colour rendition. Even several metres away from your subject, at f/1.8 you can still get a pleasing background blur at infinity. Sharpness at f/1.8 is still respectable although the images do have some CA, and almost a 'dreamy' look to them; this was taken at f/1.8 and 1600 ISO:



The red letters aren't quite as sharp as they could have been but if it wasn't for f/1.8, I wouldn't have got the exposure - and these were handheld, in poorly lit room.

Sure, it's plastic but don't let that put you off. the quality is unbeatable for the price.
 
Well the f1.8 is a big saving, but how quick is the focusing ? I've just a little concerned that as I'm intending on using it for taking pics of indoor showjumping the lens is likely to be wide open, so small depth of field and with a quick moving subject, and if the focussing is a bit slow then I'd get pretty poor results....

or am I worrying over nothing ?
 
Focussing isn't bad but it hunts in low light. I don't use autofocus though and the subjects I usually photograph aren't particularly split-second, so I'm not much help there.
 
I own the Sigma 1.4 and my wife has the Canon 1.4 they both focus very quick I find the contrast and colour better on my Sigma. I also prefer the 77mm filter thread of the Sigma.

Both are quality lenses and if your budget allows I'd say to go for the 1.4 version everytime over the 1.8
 
This issue seems to come up quite regularly.

The Sigma is designed to give the best image quality at F1.4 on full frame cameras. The Canon is at its best at around F7-F8.

Rumour has it that Canon is about to announce the mark 2 version of the F1.4.
 
The current canon 1.4s seem to fall apart too easily. I wouldn't touch 1.8 if performance wide open is required, but at 5.6-8 you can't find a sharper lens. Perhaps its the best to get Sigma or wait a little bit more.
 
Jon. I used the Canon 50mm 1.4 on my 7D at Merrist Wood for a few Show Jumping dates before switching to Nikon. I found it very good, fast to focus, sharp and of course it's small and light.
A good friend uses the Siggy and if I'd known that I could have got one from Onestop Digital for £309 I'm sure I'd have bought that instead.
It's just that I like the idea of the 77mm front end !!
 
Just been out to have a play with the Sigma f1.4 & the Canon f1.4 at Park Cameras and found that the auto focus on the Sigma hunted terribly on my 40D, and that was only taking picks of the static display in the shop. Don't know if the the demo one in the shop (they only had that one in stock so couldn't try any other) was a bad example or not. But it was useless, doubt I'd have got a single shot in focus if I was trying to take a pic of anything moving.

The Canon f1.4 at least focused right first time, but the comments above seem to imply that the Canon has serious reliability issues. Which leaves me to a question of what else is there ?

or should I just wait to see if the suggested mk2 version of the canon shows up sometime soon?
 
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