Canon 50mm 1.4

Canon 50mm 1.4 – You can easily buy the Canon 50mm 1.8f lens for less than $100, so you may be asking yourself why you should spend more to get the Canon 50mm 1.4? The answer is simple: you may not need to. The answer is all dependent on how serious you are about photography, what your budget is, and the lifetime expectancy you have for your lens.

The 50mm f1.8 lens is a great starting lens for both the Canon 50mm 1.4 and the 1.8 variety of lenses, or prime lenses in general. The Canon 50mm 1.4 has the capability to see the world as your naked eye does, so it would be a good companion to spend some time with. It is useful and intuitive; regardless of how your camera crops the photos it takes. You can buy the f1.8 cheap, and use it as the lens you use to play around with, so that you can also be introduced to the quality that prime lenses can give you. The f1.8 is definitely a big step up from the kit lens as well as other overpriced zoom telephoto lenses. It is basically a pretty big bang for very few bucks.

So why does the canon 50mm 1.4 hold a place in Canon’s most popular lenses if the f1.8 is such a good quality purchase? Think of it this way: if the f1.8 is already so good with certain kinds of photography conditions, then the canon 50mm 1.4 can deliver with a much wider range. You get what you pay for, and we’ll save the best features for last when telling you about this.

Features of the Canon 50mm 1.4 Lens

The construction is quite affordable but is definitely very solid: the canon 50mm 1.4 has a longer life span than the f1.8, which is only made of plastic; hence it has a higher resale value. It is definitely an investment of a lens, not a commodity. It will be clear to you once you have this lens on your camera and in your hands. (My first one needed a calibration only after 80,000 shots taken, abuse and wear and tear, because of constant swapping with my other prime lenses.) The main issue about the f1.8 lenses has been the font glass has a tendency to fall out. With the Canon 50mm 1.4, it is only about the Micro Canon USM lens focus motor, which is not as strong as the regular Canon USM lens motors on other lenses.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE CANON EF 50mm F1.4 LENS

• Versatility in focusing: the canon 50mm 1.4 has something very unique called the full-time manual focus, which lets you not only autofocus but also lets you fine-tune further without even having to switch from automatic to manual focus. This is much unlike the f1.8. Also, the f1.8 is infamous for being noisy and making a lot of buzzing noises when it auto focuses, and the focus ring is only at a bare minimum and is even missing a distance scale. The autofocus of the canon 50mm 1.4 is definitely more reliable, even in dim light. But remember, it can still fail if it is starved of light too much.

• Resistance to aberration: there is sometimes the appearance of fringe colors when you use certain lower end kinds of lenses. These aberrations care called chromatic aberrations, and it can be expected from both lenses since they have very wide aperture openings. But when they were compared to each other in tests, the f1.8 was more prone to the vignette effect, halation (a glowing light around highlights), and lens flare, especially when used with a filter. The lens flare does occur in the Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, but it is more in control. It is more in focus than in the f1.8. A light source is more likely to blow out a shot taken with the f1.8 than with the Canon 50mm 1.4 it can become as low as one whole stop.

• Color: Although the f1.8 can catch up to the 1.4 by the time it gets to f/8, it can rarely ever catch up to the saturation capacity of the Canon 50mm 1.4. The color saturation of the f1.4 can be described as proper-to-strong in almost all of the apertures available except in the widest, which is canon 50mm 1.4. The photos of the f1.8 have proven to be more likely to need post processing work. That is not to say that the 1.4 is the best saturation there is. As a matter of fact, I get better saturation from my 24mm f2.8 prime as well as my 100mm f2.8 macro lens.

• Headroom: with the way both the Canon 50mm 1.4 and 1.8 lenses are created, you need to choose between the most possible light entering or the most possible clarity you can get from the available light. You can opt for crisp or you can opt for sharpness, all you need is to go a stop down. The samples will vary, but you can definitely get to a sharp enough photo by the f2.0, and get a very, very sharp photo by f2.8. By the time you get to f/4, you get an effect referred to as unreal sharp. In this curve, the f1.8 will probably lag for about a stop.

Canon 50mm F1.4 Lens

Canon 50mm 1.4 – Not your Average EF Lens

The second Canon 50mm 1.4 that I purchased worked even better than the first, and right out of the box it was marginally sharp at the 1.4 setting and increased sharpness beyond reproach by f1.8-2. Although you will experience a little bit of halation and light fall-off in the darker areas when at the 1.4-1.6 aperture. If you feel that extreme sharpness is not right for you, then you need to get your lens calibrated to be able to reach your needs. My first one was the typical way the lens is usually out of the box, but after calibration it acted much like the second one I bought.

You should also note that the 50mm 1.2L, when bought at the premium price, is a lot sharper and performs generally better at wide apertures, although it is a lot less sharp at the f2.8 through to f8. The canon 50mm 1.4 is better for when you want to be able to walk around with your lens, and is a lot cheaper as well.

The Canon 50mm 1.4 loses a third of a stop bright than most other canon lenses, which is why I felt baffled by the light changes as I changed lenses. Even though it is generally brighter in the viewfinder, and it is a whole stop faster than the f1.8 even at its maximum apertures. Even though the clarity may take a hit, this is a big advantage when trying to shoot moving subjects in low light.  Like when you are shooting at wide open apertures, for example, during performance in dim venues.

A quicker shutter lens means less motion blur, but you need more light for better color. When you magnify these photos 100%, the edges may be soft but are relatively clearer than the out of focus parts in the background. This may just be an illusion of clarity in the digital form and may not look very good in print, but it will look good online.

To sum it up, the f1.8 can produce stunning images, light in daylight photography, or as long as the conditions are controlled and you can stay stopped down, the Canon 50mm 1.4 lens is definitely better at adapting to changing conditions.

Saving The Best For Last

As I was telling you earlier, these are the best features of the 50mm f1.4 lens:  You get the advantage of a very wide aperture in both lenses, which can be used even in a tight focal plane and still produce a blurry background. This is one of the cornerstones of creative photography, and is something you can fully explore in both the lenses.

This blur quality has a name, and it is called Bokeh. The look of the bokeh that your lens produces is dependent on the number of blades it has. The 1.8 has five, which will produce pentagonal bokeh. The canon 50mm 1.4 has eight blades, which will produce round bokeh. Odd numbers of blades will produce a double number of points, so that means 8 pointed stars on the f1.4 (because 8 is not an odd number) and ten pointed stars on the f1.8 (because 5 blades = 10 points). The bokeh on the f1.8 can be quite choppy, especially at the widest openings, but the Canon 50mm 1.4 can consistently give you buttery smoother bokeh each and every time.

There is more quality and sharpness that you find in the canon 50mm 1.4.  There is also quality when the shot is not meant to be so sharp. This is why the canon 50mm 1.4 is a favorite lens in the Canons series of lenses. This is also why the price becomes worth it.

The f1.8 will make a great starter lens for you, but if you want an exceptional and serious lens, then the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 is the real deal. If you are just starting out and only learning to love photography, then it is definitely fine to pay $80 for a lens that you will outgrow sooner or later. If you already love photography, then $300 should be a worthy price to pay for a true investment. You will recognize that.

(Addendum: There is also a Canon 50mm f2.5 macro lens that costs about $250. This is a good lens if and only if you NEED a macro lens. You may choose it for general purposes, but it is slower than the f1.8, it is quite difficult to manually focus, it does not offer a smooth and creamy bokeh, seeing as it only has six blades and not eight. So if you wish to do macro work, you may strike gold with the Canon 100mm macro 2.8 lens, which is drastically more practical. It performs better in general, and it is considered middle priced when you need a lens that can do many things in one. The Canon 50mm 1.4 can be considered as the Jack of All Trades lens if you will.)

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE CANON EF 50mm F1.4 LENS

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