is my 50 too soft wide open or is this about right ?

[danny lee]

I am selling a digital rebel on ebay, so I decided to take a few

sample pics to post up.

 

I used the 50 1.8 and took 3 pics of my left foot, 1600 iso, F1.8

F2.8 and F4.0

 

if you would look, it is here . http://www.dannyleephoto.com/drebebay

 

The focus point for each shot is the mesh of the toebox in the

sneaker.

 

I noticed the the 1.8 is soft RIGHT AT THE FOCAL POINT ! whereas the

2.8 isnt so bad, with the 4.0 pretty sharp.

 

Is this about right for the 50 1.8 ? would I have sharper results

with the 50 1.4 at F1.8 ?

 

thanks guys for looking.

[lotsawa]

Danny, your shoe does look good to me. What do you expect from a 1.8 lens wide open? I have the 50/1.4, but I don't think it would be significantly sharper.

 

Also, focussing at 1.8 can be problematic. Just move the camera (or your foot) a bit, and you are out of focus. But your pics look good to me, and I would definitely buy your 300D plus that lens at a reasonable price if I needed it.

[William Kahn]

At f/1.8, your depth of field is measured in fractions of an inch. Part of the shoe will be in perfect focus, parts will look a little soft.

 

Could you maybe find something else to shoot? :)

[yakim_peled1]

While it is a common that a lens gets sharper when you close down the aperture, my 50/1.8 was VERY sharp wide open. I am talking about 20X30cm prints. While I remember having DoF problems, this was MY mistake, not the lens' fault.

 

 

 

Happy shooting,

Yakim.

[danny lee]

Hmmm.. thanks !

[paul -]

Here's some info on DOF:<P><a href="http://www.photo.net/learn/optics/dofdigital/">"Depth of Field and the Digital Domain"</a><p><a href="http://bobatkins.com/photography/technical/dofcalc.html">"Depth-of-Field Calculator"</a><p>And, as long as you mentioned both the 1.8 and 1.4 versions of the EF 50mm:<p><a href="http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/ef50/">"Canon EF 50mm - F1.4 vs F1.8 MK II"</a>

[rob_murray]

my 50mm F1.8s are about like yours. 1.8 is not too good, improves a lot by F2.8.

[steve_dunn2]

<p>It's not uncommon for fast lenses to be much softer wide open than they are stopped down a bit. My 50/1.4 USM is so soft at f/1.4 that I consider it unusable. It's much better by f/2, and its performance at f/1.8 is closer to its performance at f/2 than f/1.4, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's somewhat better at f/1.8 than the 50/1.8 is.</p>

 

<p>It's entirely possible that it might be out of focus rather than (or as well as) unsharp; as others have pointed out, DOF at f/1.8 is quite shallow, and it wouldn't take a great deal of motion between when the AF system did its thing and when the shutter opened for things to get out of whack. If you really want to do a sharpness test, the camera and the subject must both be fixed in place (which the shoe isn't in those pictures, and if the camera was handheld, it wasn't, either).</p>

[panos_voudouris]

It looks to me that the shoe laces are more in focus than the mesh. It becomes more

apparent at the f/4 shots, where the detail on the laces is much better than on the mesh.

[kit_chong]

What was the shutter speed? I don't think the 50 1.4 will get up much is you don't shoot it on a tripod and with your shoe moving. Do you expect much from ISO 1600?

[qtluong]

Your results are normal. Both 50 lenses are extremely soft wide open. My measurements also confirm that the 50/1.4 at f2 is significantly better than the 50/1.8 wide open. <a href = "http://www.terragalleria.com/">Terra Galleria photography</a>

[danny lee]

thanks guys