I fancy a 50mm lens for my canon 350d.
Are the cheap ones as good as the canon?
Will an old slr lens ie charity shop fit?
Any opinions?

canon do a cheap 50mm. the build quality is plastic but the optics are very good.

it wasnt that long ago you could get this for £50
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/canon-50mm-f1-8-ii-lens-08513324-pdt.html

you can still find them on ebay for that kind of price.

Its a fantastic lens for the money. Unforgiving with sloppy focussing at f1.8 though.

You can still get the f1.8 50mm Canon for about £75 from Onestopdigital etc

Do you want a 50mm or a 50mm? A lens marked as a 50mm used on a 350D will actually give you an effective focal length of 80ish mm. To get an effective focal length of 50mm you’d need a 30ish mm lens. Apologies if you knew that already but thought I’d check!

As for which are good, a 50mm is probably the most common lens design so you can get a good one for pretty cheap from whoever. Having said that, the Canon 50 1.8 is so cheap that you might as well go OEM as it is very good.

I use the ‘nifty fifty’ on my 5D MkII and when you get the focussing right, it’s very good (if a little soft below f/2.8). The big downside is its focussing though – doesn’t seem particularly accurate compared the the f/1.4

If you do want a 50mm lens (which is great for portraits and ‘detail’ shots, but a little ‘telephoto’ for street and landscape), then there’s little point looking further than the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 as others have said.

Cheapest UK price:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-EF-50-1-8-Lens/dp/B00005K47X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354104659&sr=8-1

I looked at import prices and I could only beat it by a pound or 3, so it’s not worth it. Occasionally you see one for £59, but rarely and sometimes refurbished.

Agree about 50mm being a little long for ‘walk around’.

I’ve got a 25mm which is equivalent to 50mm in old money and that’s not that great for shots of surroundings.

If you want a ‘standard’ field of view lens, then the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 is the one that always gets recommended, but it’s a leap up in money at £260ish.

There are other options if you’re ok with manual focus (maybe for filming, or studio).
Something like a second hand old Nikon 28mm f/2 with an adapter. Or older Canon FD lenses.

Or older Canon FD lenses.

Ironically, these are about the only old lenses you can’t fit to EOS cameras without having to use some low quality optical adapter. Pretty much all others use adapters that don’t require glass.

Thanks for picking me up on that zokes – yes, it’s an important point. FD is out as there are plenty of alternatives.

(there are ways around it, but not worth bothering if the idea is to do it on a budget)

Until I got my 24-105 f/4L, I used a lot of Olympus OM lenses, and these really stand up well against the L-series lens, even on my 21MP full frame camera. My favourite lens is my Olympus OM f/3.5 18mm – astounding quality from something so small, and performing on the canon way in excess of what it was ever designed to do with film. That said, it was hardly cheap…

The Canon 50mm f1.8 is the cheap one. If you find anything cheaper than that it’s probably not worth having.

Great lens for the money.

I’ve got the Canon 50mm prime lens. As davidjones says it’s plastic but very good optics.

Well worth the £60 or so I paid for it.
I use it a lot as it’s very small and light and so easy to take with you.

Anything better adds a 0 to the price.

Another ditto for the Canon 1.8 50mm II. Yep it’s plasticky but great fun and the cheapest way into photography with that large an aperture.

Get on the talkphotography forum and look for user Kerso. He will be the cheapest in UK for this lens. If he isn’t I’ll buy it for you!

Yep it’s plasticky but great fun and the cheapest way into photography with that large an aperture.

Except possibly with the exception of legacy MF stuff.

Or older Canon FD lenses.

Ironically, these are about the only old lenses you can’t fit to EOS cameras without having to use some low quality optical adapter. Pretty much all others use adapters that don’t require glass.

Not true you can get AF confirm adaptors that don’t require utilise glass. Check ebay.

Too long on a 350d
Try a 35mm f2 slightly dearer but nicer length on a cropper

Thanks for all the advice.
What do most people use them for?
I was thinking more low light close ups, with blurry background etc.

Thanks for all the advice.
What do most people use them for?
I was thinking more low light close ups, with blurry background etc.

They’re great for portraits and stuff like that. Can be a little long indoors…but personally I use mine for all kinds. Will stick it on the camera and head out on my bike all day. Either that or a 28mm, which is a bit more use-able sometimes, though I go through stages of favouring one over the other.

I was thinking more low light close ups, with blurry background etc.

That’ll be called bokeh, various spellings available, and can be a sign of a quality optic.
Much as I liked the images, I wasn’t a fan of the quality and sold it on to a mate who wanted it for taking pictures on nights out in dark clubs and pubs.
Be very careful of the narrow dof when used wide open/f1,8.

50mm and primes rock.

The canon f1.8 lens is a great one to try. I had one and it eventually fell apart. I now have the f1.4. Somewhat pricier but much faster in focusing (USM motor). It works really nicely and is repairable for a price. I find the Bokeh on the f1.4 is nicer than the f1.8. It has more blades on the diaphragm (8 Vs 5).

Blurry background is the effect of depth of focus. With a lens like a f1.8 or lower you have to be careful that you don’t end up with things like an ear in focus and a blurry nose 😳

I think of bokeh as the patterning given to the out of focus stuff: a function of the depth of focus, aperture, light conditions and number of diaphragm blades.

On a 350D the 50mm lens will give you a field of view more like an 80mm lens would on a ‘regular’ film SLR. Even so, I find it’s the lens I use most. Far more than any zoom. The reason being there’s less faff in framing up (too small? move closer. Too big? Move away) and the low light performance and image quality is better than my zoom lenses.

A nice thing about using regular lenses on a compact sensor camera is that the edge of lens aberration is usually off the sensor.

If you’re really after the traditional field of view of a 50mm lens you’ll need to go to about 28-30mm. Those are a little pricier.

So what would a 30mm lens be good for?

So what would a 30mm lens be good for?

On a digital SLR with a compact sensor a 30mm lens offers the same field of view as a 50mm on a full-size sensor camera. It’s the new ‘regular’ lens. Sigma f1.4 30mm review.

So what would a 30mm lens be good for?

The 50mm was the classic portait/street photography lens. A decent walkabout, not too long, not too wide, do it all piece of kit. Only now, as explained above, the 50mm is closer to 80mm on your camera. So it still does all that stuff, but you’ll often find yourself steeping back, trying to get more in the shot, or just taking something a bit different altogether.

Something like a 30mm will be closer to the original 50mm. It doesn’t offer anything remarkable in its ordinariness, but you’ll find it use-able in a lot of situations.

Sigma f1.4 30mm..?
Righto. I love how people are suggesting he gets a £300 lens when his camera is only worth £100….. 🙄
The cheap 50mm will be perfect. 🙂

The next best thing is a used Sigma 17-70 f2.8. Which is very nearly as sharp and a lot more versatile.

Not true you can get AF confirm adaptors that don’t require utilise glass. Check ebay.

Only if you don’t need to focus to infinity, or wish to file a chunk out of the mirror to clear the rear element of the lens. The FD format was about the only format that required the lens closer to the film / sensor than the EOS system. It’s why pretty much any lens will fit to a modern Canon with a simple adapter. Unless someone’s changed the laws of physics since I last looked into this, then I doubt it will have changed much.

Righto. I love how people are suggesting he gets a £300 lens when his camera is only worth £100…..

But the camera typically isn’t where most sensible people spend the money – it’s the lenses that focus the light into the camera where you need to spend.

Unfortunately I was hoping to spend around £100.
I’ve got a bike build to pay for yet.

Unfortunately I was hoping to spend around £100.
I’ve got a bike build to pay for yet.

Stick with the nifty-fifty. If you don’t like it you won’t lose much on resale.

Unfortunately I was hoping to spend around £100.
I’ve got a bike build to pay for yet.

http://www.onestop-digital.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=33321

Or for a bit more

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?LH_ItemCondition=4&_lncat=0&_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A4%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A5701&_sacat=0&_catref=1&_sc=1&_nkw=sigma%2017%2070&_sop=2

There is nothing better for the money, no matter what the others say.

it’s the lenses that focus the light into the camera where you need to spend.

Yes, it might be, but right here, on this thread, that’s pie in the sky isn’t it? 🙂

jkomo Send me a email and you can have my 50mm f1.8

If you have a hankering to use a prime lens and you have about £100 then the 50mm f1.8 is the lens to get. 50mm on a compact sensor works nicely.

Peterpoddy, great links, thanks, Email sent Stuarty, let me know how much.

I wouldn’t say spend ALL your money on lenses.. your camera does need to be able to record the detail that your lens is supplying of course.

Not true you can get AF confirm adaptors that don’t require utilise glass. Check ebay.

Richpips – I just looked. They don’t support anything wider than f/5.6 and often don’t focus to infinity. Surely it negates many of the reasons for going with a prime. Especially as the OP has mentioned bokeh.
As Zokes points out – it’s just not worth the hassle.

Edit: I’ve found one which does wide apertures but still doesn’t focus to infinity (65 meters) so it’s probably just about ok.
They mention that it’s great for Macro lenses:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AF-Confirm-chip-Adapter-Canon-FD-to-Canon-EF-EOS-/271092586194?pt=US_Lens_Adapters_Mounts_Tubes&hash=item3f1e6096d2

I wouldn’t say spend ALL your money on lenses.. your camera does need to be able to record the detail that your lens is supplying of course.

Indeed.
I was increasingly finding that my 400D would struggle to hold focus on low contrast subjects (Like photographing something plain white to go on ebay) but the 650D I’ve replaced it with is faaaaar better at this. I can’t see me buying any more lenses than the 4 I have now either.

Also, if you decide you want a large aperture for low light, it might be cheaper (depending on what you are looking at) to get a body with better higher ISO performance.

That’s just an example of course, nothing related to the OP. This is singletrack after all. Wouldn’t want to let the side down.

Just thought I’d come back in and mention this lens, which I’d totally forgotten about.
It gets great reviews and at 40mm is a little wider than the nifty fifty.

(I understand it’s not for everyone though)
https://www.onestop-digital.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=34080