50 1.8 or 1.4

I'm going to buy a prime and can not afford the 50mm 1.2L. Is the 1.4 worth the extra money or should I just buy the 50mm 1.8?

If you have no experience useing a lens prolonged at 50mm, and are not sure you'll like it, get the 1.8, if you really love the 50mm focal length , get the 1.4. I started with the 1.8 and loved it, moved on to the 1.4 and then the 1.2. The 1.4 has better colors and contrasts, and is faster, but i never loved it.

Look at the lens photo archive and compare the sample pictures. Decide if you want to spend 3x more for the 1.4.
I did because I had some extra cash. Conincidently, I was going to sell my 1.8 and the Autofocus died on the sample picture I took to sell the lens.

What is different about the 1.4 is it feels heavier and more solid, its quieter, and the bokeh it produces is of a smoother quality. If you don't mind the "harsher" bokeh of the 1.8, its a great lens for one third the cost.

Why are you after 50mm? Are you on a full frame body?

I have the 50mm 1.8, and 20mm 2.8 ... thinking about trading them both for a 30mm or 35mm instead. On my 50d, 50mm is too long, 20mm is too wide.

Really depends on the pictures you take and how picky you are. I find the bokeh on the 1.8 to be quite harsh and not very pleasing. Aside from that, the 1.8 is really good.

canon really doesn't make a great 50mm.

the 1.8 is cheap and sharp, bokeh is hexagon shaped and very noticeable.

the 1.4 is better built, much faster AF, comparable sharpness, better bokeh although not stellar and some argue very ugly, although it never really bothered me.

the 1.2 is expensive, not much if at all sharper than the 1.4, i'd argue the 50 1.4 is the best 50mm.

all are soft wide open, but sharpen up very, very nicely when stopped down.

if you dont care about build quality and can live with the very slow AF in low light and avoid shooting things that pronounce the bokeh (like Christmas lights) than the 50/1.8 is a fantastic bargain, otherwise i'd go for the 50 1.4, simply for the AF speed alone.

Used to have 1.8 - this was the first "real" lens I bought. Dumped it a couple years later.

Pros: very sharp when it nails the focus. Esp. above 2.

Cons: doesn't nail focus consistently, slow AF, hunts like crazy in low light, near impossible to focus manually due to idiotic focusing ring design (more like focusing "hairline"), weird out of focus lights that look like pentagons. Plus, this is one of the very few Canon lenses that not simply feels like a plastic toy, but is actually built like one.

I got rid of mine after getting a decent sharp zoom (Tamron 17-50/2.8 non-VC) and stumbling upon an old MF Zuiko lens (50/3.5) that was every bit as sharp as the Nifty but only cost me 1/10 of the price. Since in low light Nifty was nearly useless, it's 1.8 aperture didn't make much difference. (And in good light, since I shoot mainly portraits, I would keep aperture around 2.8 so that I could get face in focus while still having some background blur). OTOH the old manual lenses are, by design, very easy to focus manually, and have very good optics.

Now 50 /1.4 - never used it, but from what I read it may not be very sharp, at least not as sharp as the Nifty. OTOH, it doesn't seem to have all of the other issues. However, at it's price range, there's a bundle of lenses to chose from.

Depending on what you shoot, your best bet just may be a good manual lens for $50 or so.

However, if I wasn't sure what I want, didn't want to mess with MF lenses and adapters, and didn't have much money to spend, I'd turn to 50/1.8 without hesitation. It's still a very useable lens.

I had both. I found the f1.4 worth the extra money for the focus improvements, better light collection, and shallower DoF.

Thank you everyone. You all have been very helpful......

Got both. I was given the f1.8, decided I liked it, but needed a second 50mm as my partner and I wanted to both shoot with 50s for something. I picked up the f1.4 used, from eBay.

The build quality difference is significant. I feel it's a bit better in the f1.8-f2 region than the f1.8 (both lenses are very soft at their widest aperture). Both produce good sharp images from f2.8 onwards.

If cash were tight, and I was happy to shoot at f2.8 and smaller, the f1.8 would be fine, but I'd take the f1.4 any day of the week.

I had the 1.8 and upgraded shortly to the 1.4

You can get the 1.8 used and sell it later.

one really nice feature of the 50/.8 is that is is extremely light, I'm talking so light you dont even feel the extra weight over the body.

especially on a rebel.