that man Jam lent me one of his 50mm lenses and by god its fun to use. these are compressed versions so not that great

what camera are you using? if that is the canon 50mm f1.8 lens then it will produce much sharper images than that. are you shooting RAW or jpeg? any post processing? if it’s a canon 50mm f1.8 then on the 3rd photo you should be able to see the individual hairs. maybe worth playing about in photoshop to try and sharpen them

the shallow depth of field is fun to play with though 🙂

Maybe I’m uneducated in this, but I reckon I could do those with my A720?

Edit: Sorry, not meaning to sound derogatory – the pics are nice (barring compression) but I’m lacking the technical knowledge to see what’s special. Please enlighten!

I’got a Canon 50mm F1.8. They are good, I agree. I took these with it –

Andy – Could you expand on your post a bit please? How does shooting RAW and using Photoshop help? Will Photoshop Elements be good for this? Mine are pretty much straight off the camera (400D)

Cheers!
🙂

most 50mm prime lenses have a large minimum apeture (i.e. f1.2/f1.4/f1.8 etc. this gives a very shallow depth of field (only a very narrow section of the photo in sharp focus). the posted photos are not the best example as the DoF is not as shallow as it could be. 2 and 4 do not show shallow DoF.

no 3 is the best example, as the background is out of focus compared to the subject. The small sensor size on a compact usually does not let you create the shallow DoF effect. 50mm primes (fixed focal length lenses) are the cheapest way to get a very small DoF on a dSLR camera

Shallow DOF you say?

🙂

Yep, handy bit of kit.

Here’s some shallow DOF 50mm @ f1.7 (picture of a 50mm f1.4 and beer):

if the OP was shooting RAW and doing no PP then the images would be quite soft, as the camera applies no sharpening in RAW mode. In jpeg mode the camera will apply processing according to the camera settings, but does not do this with RAW. so if you are shooting RAW files you need to sharpen them on the computer in post processing.

My canon 40D will produce quite sharp jpegs, but the RAW files require sharpening to make them look nice.

having owned a canon 50mm f1.8 and used it quite a lot, i think the OPs photos were not taken with one of those as it is a very sharp lens.

Peter,

in photoshop (I use PSE6) the two things you want to play with for sharpening(on jpg files or RAW files you have converted to jpeg) are the unsharp mask tool and the high pass filter.

USM is found in ‘enhance’ > ‘unsharp mask’

HPF is in ‘filter’ > ‘other’ high pass. however you need to use a new layer and change the blending mode to ‘overlay’ before applying the HPF to the new layer.

google for tutorials on both methods. there are a few out there that explain it well.

if you dont use RAW already it is worth a go, but is more time consuming thatn jpg format

It’s been scaled and web optimised. It won’t be sharp anymore even if you sharpened it with a diamond coated sharpener.

Ah I getcha. This is the smallest DoF I have got with mine I think, and thats in macro with a wide angle lens:

Thanks for educating!

It’s been scaled and web optimised. It won’t be sharp anymore even if you sharpened it with a diamond coated sharpener.

what does ‘web optimised’ mean? really small file sizes? I usually just post a small image from my flickr site and the quality doesn’t change that much?

When you save a jpeg you’re prompted for a quality setting. 100% gives you a large file with lots of detail. 60-80% gives you a much smaller file with less detail. Typically editors default to somewhere between 60 and 80.

The photo I posted started life with enough detail that you could zoom into the lens in the corner of the picture and see my wife’s face in it. Scaled and quality reduced to 80% the detail is gone.

Here’s one of mine with a 50mm, you can definitely make out the hairs on his head:

i didnt say they were good i said it was fun! and yes on my original you can see the hairs, its been compressed to 640 x 320 for fotopic (which seems to wash out my pics anyway) to upload here without taking ages. actually….

lets see if this looks better, damn the lack of preview!

and again

They are great lenses…one of mine……

or

any better? tbh as i cant autofocus, theres no exposure reading on my camera for it and i have to adjust the f stops manually it is a bit of a learning curve-had it since sunday

its an old nikon lense on a d40 btw andy, f1.8 tho im saving up for when the new af-s 1.4 drops down a bit in price

Is there a better value for money lens than the canon 50mm f1.8 prime? I dont think there is.

fontmoss, 2nd one is much better. lots more detail there, and nice and sharp as you’d would expect from a prime (otherwise you may as well use a zoom and keep the flexibility)

not meaning to have a go at you, but the first image you posted was soft and didn’t look as if it was from a prime. 2nd one is much sharper with nice detail.

manual focus is a pain in the arse, I’ve been playing with live view today in low light and the AF is sod all use. can see where you’re coming from if you’re using MF with a shallow DoF. not easy

the exposure on the face close up looks spot on, you could maybe boost the saturation / contrast a little but thats a minor issue. it was just the sharpness that looked off to me on the first one.

the 1.4 is a nice lens, but a fair bit more money. nikon lenses are not cheap!

The 50mm f1.8 Nikon is pretty cheap – though agreed the f1.4 (AFD or AFS) is not

cool no offence taken, first images are a mile away from full images but im so smitten with the fun of it! im new to slr anyway (3 weeks now) and this lense is teaching me so much its hard to remember everythin in every shot but im getting better. im enjoying manual focus too, hard work and rangefinder not always on the money but again its a learning curve

tis fun playing with a 50mm prime, makes you think a bit more. stick with it, the detail you can get on close up (and not so close up) shots is impressive

worth registering on ‘www.talkphotography.co.uk’ its a STW type site for photography. lots of advice / friendly crit / piss taking on there

I’m looking forward to using my old Minolta f1.4 50mm on my new Sony Alpha. Of course, it’ll end up a “75mm” with the smaller sensor…

Canon 1.8 50mm

I’m looking forward to using my old Minolta f1.4 50mm on my new Sony Alpha. Of course, it’ll end up a “75mm” with the smaller sensor…

Just got a 1.4 for my Sony and it’s rather nice 🙂

whats the deal with 50s becoming 75 btw? is it older lense on digi bodies that cause that?

it’s to do with the crop sensors on most entry level and mid level dSLRs. they are smaller than 35mm film negatives hence a crop factor applies to the lens. unless full frame, canon are a 1.6x crop (nikon is 1.5x or 1.7x IIRC) so a 50mm lens is effectivly the same field of view as an 80mm lens on a full frame dSLR or film SLR.

it means that a 28mm or 30mm prime on a crop body is about the same ield of view as a 50mm prime on film/full frame dSLR.

@ fontmoss:

What did you do differently to make the second pic look much sharper?

I would like a prime lens for my Sony Alpha btw, but because of demand the prices have gone much higher recently.

Flickr

50mm f1.8 on Nikon D300

LOVE the sharpness and shallow depth of field, dislike the crop factor, need to get me a fast 28mm i think

Flickr

300mm f4.5 on D300

prime lenses rock if you have time for set up

[/quote]whats the deal with 50s becoming 75 btw? is it older lense on digi bodies that cause that?

Canon have used three different sensors/crop: full frame, 1.3x and 1.6x.

Multiply the focal length by the crop and you’ll get the new effective focal length, so for a 50mm lens on a full frame, the lens is still 50mm.

50mm X 1.3(crop) = 65mm
50mm X 1.6(crop) = 80mm

HTH.

to mrmichaelwright,

I almost only use a 28mm, have got a 50mm too but I always find the 28mm is faster to focus and gives a nice level of distortion, the colours are generally quite good too.

master pip i had compressed the first batch of images dramatically just so they were quicker to upload to fotopic, the second one is full resolution and linked from my flickr account.

had a read about 50s and crop factor, so in theory a 28/30 might be nicer but in reality most folk use 50? hence the new f1.4 50 lense from nikon rather than a 30?

although seein as a 28mm is 150 quid and runs from f2.8 im not sure what advantage there would be

I had a canon 28mm f2.8 and it was much more useful for biking shots (wider angle), but did not give the small DoF or sharpness of the 50mm f1.8.

the 28mm f1.8 however I would love to try 😀

The canon 50mm f1.8 (new) is slow to focus and if used sub < F5.6 or > F8 chromatic abberation and purple fringing spoil most shots, reason = plastic lens elements and cheapo AC motor.

The mk1 50mm F1.8 (metal mount) if you can get a nice one, is optically far superior but not really useable under F2.5

The 50mm F1.4 also cant be used under F2.2 without compromise, but barrel distortion is acceptable and chromatic abberation is tolerable and bokeh is stellar, has to be the best value/performance in the 50mm line up

I dont own a 50mm F1.0 L so cant comment on that.

For me the 80mm F1.8 is my most used prime