Canon Normal EF 50mm f/1.8 II Autofocus Lens with Xsi

I just Canon Normal EF 50mm f/1.8 II Autofocus Lens for my Xsi camera. This weekend we have a outdoor party in the park. I would like take great pictures in the party like kids, games and people. I am completely beginner in the photography. I would like take pictures like focus on object and blur on background.

What settings I have put in camera? in manual mode?

Please help me out.

Welcome to POTN. There are lots of good people here with lots of good advice.

The best way to learn how to use your camera is to USE it. Take a shot. Look at LCD. Modify shot parameters. Repeat. If necessary, buy a book that explains exposure, shutter speed, ISO and aperture, and their effects on your results. You need to understand those things first. Also - read the manual. There is a ton of information in there.

This lens isn't stabilized like the XSi kit lens so keep your shutter speed faster than 1/80". Shoot in AV mode and use large apertures like f2.0 to 2.8. The larger the aperture to more blur but also the thinner the depth of field so they may prevent you from getting your entire subject in focus.

Since you said you are a beginner, let me add to FEChariot's post. Large apertures (lower f numbers) like the f1.8, 2.0, or 2.8 let in light more quickly than small apertures (higher f numbers) like f16 or 22. The lower the f number the less will be in focus (the background will blur). As mentioned you need to run some test shots to see what your are getting. While this is not exact, an app that I have shows that your 50mm, f1.8 (at that setting), at a distance of 10 feet, will have 1.3 feet that will be in focus. This will work pretty good if you are capturing an image of one of your kids. But, if there are say three in the image, unless they are in a straight line, you could start to get blur on the ones that you did not focus on. If you go to f3.5 you would get about 2.7 feet in focus with everything else being the same.

The other factor that will happen is that the closer you are to your subject the less the amount of "in focus" area you will have. If you take your shot at 2 feet (close up of someone's face), at f1.8, you will have 0.1 feet in focus (focus on the front of their nose and their ears will be blurred). If you take your shot at 20 feet (small group of people), at f1.8, you will have 6.1 feet in focus (focus on the middle and most will be in focus). You need to know that as you get closer to the subject you will have less in focus and as you get further away there will be more in focus.

As was mentioned above, the best thing to do is take some shots (practice) and look at the results. I would suggest you take a couple of the kids outside and do some test shots before heading to your weekend party.

Enjoy your camera.

Thanks Jerry this is really helpful to me...

Question: is 50mm f/1.8 II good for outside the parties or outings?

ItsMeSri wrote in post #14988708
Thanks Jerry this is really helpful to me...

Question: is 50mm f/1.8 II good for outside the parties or outings?

Yes it is. You will just have to use your feet to make up for what the lens lacks in reach (if your picture isn't close enough to the people, walk closer)

If there is the possibility of rain or sprinklers, or mister devices at the gathering, stay clear with that lens. It is not designed to be moisture resistant.

Have fun shooting the party/outing, and remember to focus on people's eyes, because as long as the eyes are in focus nearly everyone will forgive hair, chin, earrings, etc. not being in focus. remember, the smaller apertures (larger number) will allow for more items in focus in front of and behind the object you are focusing on, if you use Av mode, larger aperture numbers= slower shutter speeds. If people are walking/dancing, remember you can raise the ISO to allow camera to use a faster shutter speed.

Like others have said...practice.

Here's what you should do. Go to this site and plug in some numbers into the calculator and see how large apertures effect depth of field (how much is in focus). Then try it out--but before your party. You don't want to miss great shots because you were unfamiliar with your gear. There's nothing wrong with chimping. Review your pic and zoom in to make sure everything you want is really in focus.

Once you figure out DOF, put the camera in Av mode, set your desired aperture, and bump ISO to get the right shutter speed. When I had the XSi, I tried not to exceed ISO 800.

This is really helpful information. Thanks to everyone.

If you're a complete beginner like myself, M mode is probably too much to handle. I find Av mode a lot more friendlier for beginners who want to learn how to capture nice looking photos. Control the aperture as others have mentioned. Let the camera pick the best ISO + shutter. If it picks an ISO higher than 800, manually control the ISO and open the aperture wider.

A book called "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson got me going when I first wanted to try M mode. I highly recommend it, as will a lot of people.

Until you get the basics down, I wouldn't mess around with M mode for any important pictures. Just set the camera on auto for now, at least for the shots you have to get. And then for other stuff, definitely free free to experiment!

Thanks guys.. I took couple of pics from the event. I don't understand how those pics came like this. I focused on object, but object is blurred and background are clear. I want other way round. I want object should be clear and background is blurred.
check these pics...
Updated: I used Tamron lense EF-S 18-55mm

I've found that this lense requires a lot of practice to really get to know how it reacts. I've learned a lot from using it. The lense is known to have a somewhat fickle autofocus (re: slow, seemingly having a mind of its own). I've found that you need to be patient with it. Generally, for people, I try to lock onto the eyes so that they are tack sharp. This should avoid the lense trying to focus further.

In regards to some of the pictures - the main thing is learning how the lense autofocuses.

For the first picture, being that close, you could probably go to f/2.8 or 2.2 and maybe move back slightly or shoot vertical (depending on how to wanted to frame the picture). Mainly, to get the side of the other person's face out of the picture. Mostly though, make sure you are locked onto the eyes, so the camera doesn't try to re-focus. In the second picture, you want to be shooting at higher f-stop to get more of the scene into focus.

Also for reference, this website is very helpful if you have the time to read through some of the threads. The search function works well. I've found some good tutorial videos on youtube as well.

A key is too, that if you are too close, it cannot focus. Distance is the key to lens, especially on a crop body like your XSI. Practice focusing it on the object you want.

ItsMeSri wrote in post #15008420
Thanks guys.. I took couple of pics from the event. I don't understand how those pics came like this. I focused on object, but object is blurred and background are clear. I want other way round. I want object should be clear and background is blurred.
check these pics...
Updated: I used Tamron lense EF-S 18-55mm

I'm not familiar with the Xsi, but on the Canon bodies I know you can ask it to show you the focus point(s) that were used when you took the photo (take a look through the menu options for image playback).

For the second and third shots it's possible the focus point wasn't on your intended subject.

For the first image, it may be, as has been pointed out, that the subject was simply too close for the lens to focus. I know kids can often move quickly and go out of your focus distance, but with that first shot, the focus was clearly further on the background.

Come to think of it - I wouldn't usually expect the camera to take the picture unless you'd got focus (though you can turn that off in some bodies), plus the focus seems to be a fair distance from you in all three shots... so... are you sure you didn't have the lens set to manual focus (MF) with the focus ring set to somewhere in the distance? That would've happily allowed you to fire the shutter even though you'd not actually focussed on anything specific. On a 7D, selecting to display the focus points on playback shows no points if the lens was set to MF, so if the Xsi does the same that'll give you your answer (i.e. you'll see no focus points on those images).

Your shutter speeds were high enough to avoid camera shake given the focal lengths, though I don't understand why the first shot was 1/2000 at ISO400 (1/500 at ISO100 would've been fine).

A very rough rule of thumb for 35mm film cameras was at least 1/focal length in terms of shutter speed; i.e. the 50mm (non-stabilised) lens would need 1/50s or faster for a sharp shot. As the Xsi is a 1.6x crop, you get a shot as if you'd taken the image with a 50x1.6=80mm lens, hence the suggestion to keep the shutter speed faster than 1/80s. A stabilised lens (IS) will allow at least a couple of stops slower - e.g. a 50mm (effective 80mm) IS lens should be OK at 1/80 x2 x2 = 1/20s (maybe even slower). Remember that only freezes your movement, not the subject!

The 50mm f1.8 II is pretty soft up until f2.8 (and the depth of field (DOF) will be so shallow it may be difficult to keep things in focus anyway). Best thing to do would be to put the camera on a table (or tripod) with a few objects on the table. Focus on an object in the middle distance, and take a set of shots at f2, f2.8, f4, f5.6 etc. to see the difference. An effect called diffraction will cause your whole image to start to become soft as you go much beyond f8, so despite getting more DOF, by f13 you should see a noticeable softening of the whole image.

Hi,
Welcome to POTN.... Please review this thread:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=414088