50mm 1.8 way too soft

[ericzbeard]

<p>Mine is sharp but I despise the chalky bokeh. I've never been happy with this lens, but it's only $100.</p>

[wchen]

<p>I use my 50mm AF f1.8D on D200, often manually focusing. When the image came out soft, I never blamed the lens but myself: where was I focusing?</p>

[wade_roth]

<p>I'm still pretty new to this game but doesn't DOF fall off very quickly at wide apertures like 1.8? In other words, doesn't the inverse square law apply here? If so and if I understand it correctly, the closer I am to the subject and the wider the aperture, the shallower the DOF gets. At least this seems to be the case with my copy of this lens. When I try to take head shots of my daughter and focus on her eyes, the tip of her nose will get soft and her ears definitely get soft. When I backup for a 3/4 or full body shot this doesn't happen. I guess I may have always assumed this was aperture related because it not nearly as noticeable on my 18-200 3.5-5.6 VR.<br>

--Wade</p>

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

<p>Too many pixel peepers. Doesn't anyone print anymore?</p>

[patrick j dempsey]

<p>I'm going to have to agree with others who commented on your technique. In general, not just for Nikon, 50mm f/1.8 lenses are considered to be too sharp and too harsh for portraits. Longer lenses tend to have a softening effect with skin while having the appearance of better edge sharpness because of more extreme out of focus blurriness. My guess is that you are shooting at too low of a shutter speed and getting movement from your subject and possibly even camera shake. Small children move much faster than old farts and even when they appear to be sitting still, they are often bouncing and quaking around... weak muscles in babies make them to quite a bit of quaking. You need to be shooting faster than 1/60th to make up for camera shake and faster then 1/250th to make up for your subject's motion. Even with a SLIGHTLY faster f/1.4 lens, you are going to have a hard time getting shutter speeds like indoors without cranking the ISO up to ungodly speeds. You might want to try playing around with a bounce flash which will give you natural looking even light and allow you to shoot without motion issues. You don't need much flash for most homes, a 20-30GN flash with a bounce will provide plenty of light in low ceilings.</p>

[stephen_asprey2]

<p>Sounds like your shots are out of focus. This lens is the second sharpest, after the 28/2.8 Ais, in Nikons arsenal. I hope you are not using auto focus? A portrait on this lens will be nice at 1.8 IF you manually focus the eyes. The nose will be sharp as will as the rest of the head, but that's all. Stop down to check the DOF before you shoot. Also if you wear glasses and take them off to look through the viewfinder and you long sight is a bit out, so will be your shot. I thought my distance sight was really good, but I still need a +0 diopter to see what the cameras sees as in focus.<br>

If you want to do portraits, then you really need to be at 85 or 105mm. The pros now shoot an 80-200/ 2.8 and you get nice results. But that's too big for me. I have three manual lenses all on separate bodies. an FE2 with the 50 for street candids, a 105AIs on an FM2n when I need to manual focus for a head shot and select what part of the face to meter off, and the 28/2.8 AIs or 18-35 AFD on an F4s for fast, wide, in the thick of it, shots street shots where my presence is not an issue. I love the 105/2.5 Ais manual lens. Its tiny and smooth. It's sharp too and with gorgeous bokeh. You have to get a DC to better it. It was Nikons pro portrait lens for ages, only being in less demand now than the newer AF zooms. For some the 85/1.8 is nice too for half body shots.<br>

Also, the 50 is a "scene" lens, designed to capture groups of people at a distance of up to 5-7 metres. Then your AF will help.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p><em>No point in having a wide lens if you are not gonna shoot wide open</em><br>

Actually, there are a lot of uses for the 50/1.8 which don't involve shooting at really wide apertures. By f/2.8 it's quite a bit sharper than any zoom at 50mm f/2.8. The image is still better at f/5.6. And not only does it cost a fraction of a fast zoom, it weights a fraction too and is not as obtrusive.</p>

[wj_lee]

<blockquote>"Actually, there are a lot of uses for the 50/1.8 which don't involve shooting at really wide apertures. By f/2.8 it's quite a bit sharper than any zoom at 50mm f/2.8. The image is still better at f/5.6. And not only does it cost a fraction of a fast zoom, it weights a fraction too and is not as obtrusive."</blockquote>

<blockquote><br /></blockquote>

<blockquote>I didn't say there are no "uses" for fast lens other than to shoot wide open.<br /></blockquote>

<blockquote>Most people complaining about sharpness of fast lens wide open will be shooting at 5.6 and below, and at these apertures cheap zoom can give as good images shooting non test subjects. 50mm 1.8 is exceptionally cheap but if we are to look at 85mm 1.4 then you'll seriouly need to ask a question whether you'll used it below 2.8.<br /></blockquote>

[dana_jill]

<p><em>I hope you are not using auto focus? A portrait on this lens will be nice at 1.8 IF you manually focus the eyes.</em><br>

Well that is one mistake I have obviously been making... using auto-focus. I'm gonna try it without. No wonder the eyes keeping coming out blurry. Thanks Stephen.</p>

[bob_bill]

<p>Patrick, you nailed it, I find my 1.8 can be a bit too sharp/harsh for portraits of women. Jeff, you may just have a bad copy. To put it in perspective, it costs less then 8 nikon hats or a 77 mm polarizer and is 1/15th the cost of many pro zooms. Ilkka has gotten his hands on a new 1.4 and the photos he has posted sure look great. When its available, it is over $400 at Adorama. I look at the 1.8 as disposable and dont have a protective filter on it- the filter would cost nearly as much as the lens. </p>

[peter_kervarec]

<p>Hi I have this lens and its great especially at F2.8. What camera are you using ? I think the main problem is technique While you are standing and focussing on a baby, the slightest movement on your part or the childs will move either you or the child out of the depth of field zone - which is actually very very small at wide apertures.If you are using this lens at its closest focus distance at its widest aperture, the zone could well be in the vicinity of quarter of an inch. You move a fraction and you have a soft image. Dont blame the lens.</p>

[chrisnielsen]

<p>To the poster who suggested the Nikon 50 1.8 is "built like crap" I would suggest you check out the Canon 50 1.8 - now *that* is built cheaply. In comparison the Nikon 50 1.8 is built like a battleship!</p>

[johncrosley]

<p>I have a photo in my folder, taken at 3:00 a.m. -- one of my very first postings. <br>

It's not taken with a 50 mm but with an 85 mm -- but the point is the same. <br>

The 85mm was a fast lens - I think a 1.8 -- so the depth of field at maximum aperture would be nearly analogous to the 50 mm f 1.8 wide open - just a tad narrower.<br>

I shot it that night out of doors in front of a filling station which had its lights dimmed, and it was so dark it was nearly impossible to achieve focus with that manual focus lens because my subject -- a wife murderer who was lighting up a cigarette and talking freely about her murder and his imprisonment for 15 years -- kept moving as he explained details of why he murdered her, his subsequent imprisonment, then freedom.<br>

I tried and tried to focus and failed, and had only a minute or two of his time before his bus took off, and finally -- realizing how absolutely narrow my depth of field was -- I completely abandoned trying to focus by rotating the focus ring and just adopted a technique of fixing the focus at one distance, then sought to attain 'focus' by changing the distance to subject by rocking back and forth on my heels and toes a little. <br>

It worked. <br>

The resulting portrait was magnificent -- one of my best ever (my view -- you may differ).<br>

Everything in the portrait was blurry, the cigarette, the man, and especially the Greyhound bus in the background with HUGE circles of confusion that represented its running lights -- one would be hard pressed even to recognize it as a bus or that those were small running lights because they were so diffuse.<br>

But the one thing that was in focus was the bright red tip of the cigarette he was dragging on - that's how narrow the depth of field was. His deeply furrowed forehead and sad expression -- all greatly out of focus -- aptly seemed to represent the despair of his entire life.<br>

The out of focus aspects of the photo made it a winner in my book -- all emphasized by the cigarette tip glowing red and completely in focus, caught that way as I rocked back on my heels, snapping away as he talked.<br>

Now, that particular lens is pretty famous as a portrait lens, it's very sharp, and wide open it has a very, very narrow depth of field -- just a part of an inch at a distance that would capture the upper part of that man's body at the distance i was shooting (with film). <br>

Sometimes you have to improvise -- there's more than one way to 'skin a cat'. If I had tried to take that shot with an autofocus 85 mm lens and film, it would have failed miserably, and if I had used the focus ring to focus, it also would have failed. <br>

With a razor thin depth of field -- just slight photographer movement to match somewhat the subject movement was what was required and VOILA, a winner (for me at least).<br>

I know that was not an auto 50 f 1.8, but long ago I often shot with a 50 f 2.0 manual, a f 1.4 manual, and also have a 50 f 1.2 manual in my camera bag.<br>

If you are going to be comparing 'sharpness' for such lenses when you're talking about 'wide open' shooting, that may be appropriate if you're shooting a night scene of buildings or some such, but their real strength is in documentary/photojournalism/people shooting and in those situations it is the ability to gather light that is important and most of all just to get a recordable image -- throwing the background out of focus may be highly desirable, so switching to very high iso and a smaller aperture may be precisely the wrong artistic choice.<br>

Decades passed with my shooting almost nothing between the time I learned how to use a 50 mm lens manual focus wide open as my only lens and my taking the photo described above, but I never forgot good shooting/focus technique. <br>

With a modern autofocus lens and a camera with a multitude of focus points and the ability to 'lock on' a focus point onto a feature such as an eye, it often is possible to lock a focus point into the eye (or other feature) reframe the photo, take your picture, and have it come out with the eye razor sharp -- literally glistening. <br>

I often do that with my 70~200 f 2.8 and started out doing it with my various versions of the 80~200 f 2.8 -- often shot in very low light. Reframing can make focus difficult, and a large number of focus points helps -- though I prefer no more than about 11, or so.<br>

While sharpness can be a goal and should not be overlooked in proper circumstances, sometimes it can be appropriate to show blur from subject motion and camera motion, and that occasion arises particularly when one's lens is following a lively subject panning or panning and zooming together, and often in low light where focus can be trying. One of my best kid's photos has nothing in focus at all except the silhouette of a running girl's face -- all the rest is blurry. A photo of a supermarket worker with a huge grin taken as he moved is all blurry, but got high rates and is a favorite.<br>

Results with blurry captures can be hit or miss but can sometimes can be stunning, and those photos will look like nobody else's captures.<br>

I read that wedding photographers often expect to get 85% or 95% or some such of their photos as 'keepers'. <br>

I reviewed the captures of a fledgling and very, very good 'photojournalist' style wedding photographer, who had a very low capture rate, but his photos were wonderful.<br>

I saw the quality of images he was getting and suggested he enter them in a contest -- he did and many of his captures won prizes in a statewide contest for wedding photographers.<br>

Many were not particularly sharp, almost all were taken in low light, most without any sort of flash, but all captured the moment -- the spirit of the occasion and showcased special moments of life in an inimitable manner.<br>

It's good to talk about all the technical aspects of this or that lens - such as the 50 mm f 1.8, but the real test is how good the photographer is in using it or any other lens.<br>

I often am asked by people on the street including many photographers 'what camera or lens is best'.<br>

I vastly prefer Nikon because I just happen to like and know how Nikons handle. <br>

But I often tell those who inquire, 'if you give me or any good photographer any single lens reflex camera. a reasonable lens (nothing prize winning), and a bit of time to familiarize myself with them, any one of them is capable of producing prize winning shots.' <br>

'The better equipment will be capable of producing such shots more often and with greater regularity, and that's the real worth of the best equipment, besides better image quality where that is important.<br>

Looking through my captures, my most viewed photo was taken with a $28, 28 mm lens, bought in Hong Kong. <br>

You focused that lens and to meter it, you had to turn a ring to let the meter take a reading through the lens stopped down -- not wide open as even with older Nikon lenses as it did not have 'auto metering' capability built in -- it was such a cheapo lens. But it was quite sharp. <br>

It was the devil to use in 'street shooting if you had to meter, but it took wonderful photos, and since I mostly used it out of doors, the metering often didn't change for hours.<br>

When Richard Nixon came to San Francisco, and I was walking to work at Associated Press and happened on him, followed by the Secret Service, well wishers, the Washington Presidential Press Corps and the California Press Corps, I pulled out my camera, took a photo of him, and it appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner - confounding everyone. <br>

It was my $28 lens again.<br>

I think PN member Giuseppe Pasquali shoots everything with a Nikkor auto 18~200 mm dx f 3.5~5.6, and you'd expect that confined to using that lens he'd produce mediocre image quality at best. <br>

In actuality, he gets very good to excellent image quality on all but his longest telephoto shots, despite his lens.<br>

Most of the very good photographers who post here, like Tim Holte who posted above, can take an excellent image with just about any generic slr type camera in their hands (and some, the rangefinders and tlrs too). <br>

The old saying may be hackneyed, but it often applies to equipment:<br>

'It ain't what you got, but what you do with it.'<br>

I once visited a doctor who had several magnificent cameras in magnificent condition.<br>

He had gone to elaborate trouble to be in places where world famous celebrities would be so he could take their photos -- concerts, book signings, etc., and photos of world famous celebrities were everywhere in his fabulously expensive house.<br>

Every one was a mediocre photo at best. He was not a good photographer at all - but he thought he was.<br>

He had a web site and he was attempting to sell his photos -- to that date he had not sold one.<br>

The reason was he worshipped his equipment, not the image.<br>

'Nuff said?<br>

John (Crosley)</p>

[edward chen]

<p>This lens has drawn a lot of attention: pros and cons. The pros blame the cons being "lacking of knowledge of how to use the lens" or "getting a lemon" crap.<br>

There are plenty of reviews of this lens out there. And I happen to have results that comply with the reviews that this lens in indeed soft wide open at point of focus.<br>

Not in vicinity of focus point.<br>

I am not pixel peeper, but somebody needs to pay attention to the details. It's digital. A single click reveals everything.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<h4>"It just doesn't do justice cosmetically, size and weight wise to my glorious D300."</h4>

<p>What a fatuous comment! Shouldn't it be the final pictures we're looking at, not the camera? Strangely enough, results-wise, the 50mm f/1.8 does more than justice to my even more glorious (based on size and cost) D700.<br>

Saints preserve us from fashion. A while back people were scrambling to buy those overpriced average-performing little 45mm "pancake" lenses, and now we've got a complaint that a lens of perfectly respectable size and performance isn't big enough to adorn the front of a half-frame sensor camera.</p>

[Sanford]

<p>Sorry Rodeo Joe, that was more or less my attempt at humor - I should have added a little smilely face at the end. The truth is that the 50mm F1.8 lens does not balance well on the heavier Nikons. And, I never really cared for how that pancake lens "looked" om my FM3a. Call me superficial, but I do care about how cameras look and feel. Why would someone buy a Leica (I did) when a Pentax K1000 would do the same job. You can't possible live in this world and tell me your purchasing decision are not strongly effected by how stuff looks!</p>

[Sanford]

<p>And one more thing, you may consider your D700 more glorious based on size and weight, but you have to admit, the D300 is a MUCH better looking camera. The D700 just looks all out of porportion to me.</p>

[richard_turner1]

<p>Thanks John, i enjoyed reading your post, it made me realise why i love my camera. Sanford, i think the 50mm looks great on my D300. But i do agree with 'it takes time to get used to', just trying to find the focus ring can be a problem and i think it's focusing range is tight, as in, i wish it took longer to get from one end to the other but it is sharp, if you can find sharp.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p><em>but you have to admit,</em> <br /> <br /> Wouldn't it be best to let people think for themselves?</p>

[david israel]

<p>I like mine...<br>

It depends on what your need is..</p>

<p>Obviouisly there are better lenses out there but sometimes it's nice to have a light weight lens that takes a good shot at low light..</p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>David</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>"But you have to admit" is a common; almost too common English phase.<br /> <br /> "to be truthful" is a common; almost too common English phrase used in the USA.<br>

<br /> One could use this phrases for decades around fellow USA workers and friends then one' Non USA girlfriend hears your say this phrase; and you are keel-hauled as being a liar;<br>

<br /> "when have you NOT BEEN TRUTHFUL"! you get as the massive fight is going on.</p>

[oskar_ojala]

<p>Just go over to http://images.photozone.de/nikon--nikkor-aps-c-lens-tests/217-nikkor-af-50mm-f18-d-review--test-report?start=1 in order to see that with a randomly selected 50/1.8 AF-D there's really no problem with sharpness on a DX sensor. Now the sample of the poster could be a lemon or his technique could be bad.<br>

Personally, I don't own a 50/1.8, but I own three other lenses of similar focal length and they are all excellent performers.</p>

[robert_hooper1]

<p>All of the characteristics of a lens such as speed, focal range, sharpness, etc. are secondarily important, in my opinion, to a photographer's ability to create a powerful image. If you go to the library, (does anyone still?), you will find shelves of photography books presenting the life work of dozens of famous photographers from over the decades, since the inception of the photography. As you page through these books, a great many of the magnificent photographs you will see are blurred, out of focus, or have other technical flaws. Still, the images are powerful and unforgettable.</p>

<p>I subscribe to National Geographic and often many of the fabulous images in any given issue are soft for various reasons, many of which have nothing to do with the quality of glass they were shot with. </p>

<p>To return to the subject of the AF Nikkor 50mm f1.8 D or any other fast lens. If you are presented with a great photographic opportunity and need to shoot wide open, go ahead and shoot wide open. If the image falls flat because of a little softness, the subject matter, lighting, composition, other magic, (all of the components of a great image), were not there to begin with. </p>

<p>As a former professional catalogue/product photographer, I had to produce tack sharp images for my clients, unless an art director required a certain amount of softness for effect. But that my friends is a shooting situation entirely different from which the majority of us on this forum find ourselves faced with on any given day.</p>

[guy_howard]

<p>Many years ago (25), my wife bought me a Nikon FM and a 50mm 1.8, and enticed me back into photography. I had worked as a photographer for the Forest Service back in the late 60s, so knew what a sharp photo was supposed to look like. <br>

Could not get a sharp photo from this lens (the only one I owned) to save my life, though I wasn't very experienced at the time, and accepted the pronouncement from the dealer and firends that lenses were computer designed and I just needed to practice. <br>

Finally decided to disassemble the lens, and found the glass full of air bubbles! Try exchanging the lens for another copy and retest, or go to a dealer with a laptop and see if you can detect a difference between different samples in the store.</p>

<p> </p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Lenses with air bubbles are rare today in lenses; they cause no drop in image quality. They effect a lens like a small BB glued to a dumptruck; a massive drop in gas mileage if one worries about non issues.<br>

</p>