50mm f/1.4 CA problem

Looks fine to me

wow this is my most recent lens and i havent really used it that much..i will put it to the test though

Never seen any on my copy but then again I have never shot a high contrast subject with it.

sorry for the newb question.. but what's CA? and are you refering to the spot on the lower right hand corner?

Chromatic aberration

It's the purple fringing on the borders of the white and black areas.

ah... thanks fivefish. learning something new everyday~~

ADD: if the nifty at f1.4 is giving CA.. then the nifty at f1.8 will also have CA as well no?

Just for comparison, this is a 100% crop of my cheaper 50mm 1.8 lens

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fivefish wrote:
Just for comparison, this is a 100% crop of my cheaper 50mm 1.8 lens

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can't really see it in regular photo.. but in the cropped version.. i see some CA. maybe this weekend.. i'll go check out local shop to see if they'll let me try the 50 f1.4 & 1.8.

Now that's what I would have expected from the 50mm f/1.4 i.e. No CA on the in focus Y button but an acceptable level of CA on the out of focus U button. If I'm not mistaken that's the complaint when we talk about CA. If I were take a photo of the same scene with my f/1.4 I would have got CA around the U button which is dead on the centre of the frame. It's a shame that even the f/1.8 outperforms the 3 times more expensive f/1.4. Surprised Canon hasn't picked up on the f/1.4's handling of CA.

Mine is the same and normal rom what I can tell . did not think the lens would be as bad as it is . but you will find it's fine under most conditions

That shot is no good as a comparison for CA because it's all smooth tones. Try going outside and shooting a scene with the branches of a tree against a bright cloudy sky. I would expect the two 50s to be about the same. Canon does not correct CA very well at all in their short lenses. The best you can say is that it disappears quickly when stopped down and is very, very well corrected in the long lenses.

Interesting question of theory and practice here. I think of f1.4 as having two functions: (1) light gathering and (2) shallow DOF. If I'm pushed for (1), I tend to stay at f2 and uprate the ISO, as I find a little more noise less offputting than a little more CA. But my reason for using f1.4 is (2), then I think CA is less of an issue because my main subject is visually isolated and therefore appears OK. Of course, in an ideal world a Leica 50mm f1.4 might outperform a Canon 50mm f1.4, but the Canon 5D mirror collides with the back element of the Leica, so that theoretical option isn't practical.

Oh dear, isn't photography just one compromise after another?