Canon 50mm f1.4 - first impressions

spidie at 1/160, F2, ISO 800, 3 feet away
resized and 100% crop

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Sicne when was spiderman so ghetto? Heh.

Choderboy wrote in post #2120143
This is my 50 1.4.
I post this as a good example to represent the lens's performance (not as conclusive proof)
This was one of many pics I took soon after purchasing the 50 1.4 and finding no pics wide open or close to acceptable)

When I got my 1.4 last year, the first thing I did was go outside and use it wide open—in daylight, this is not a good idea and the results are exactly what you see below with nothing looking sharp and the halo effect on most of the highlight areas. Wide open, as I discovered, has to be used carefully, high contrast scenes will result in the above effect. The shot below was shot at 1.4, and as can be seen, non of the above is present.

MIME changed to 'text/html' | Content warning: script

Atlasman, I get the same results...I haven't done much shooting indoors from a distance though.

shooting outdoors, I can shoot close to the object and be ok. anything far gets pwned.

I went back to the store today and took some shots at f1.4 with my lens and with another one.

When I compared the results at home sharpness was pretty much identical, if anything mine was a bit clearer at the edges.

The main difference was that my lens produced slightly darker images.

So now I'm satisfied that it's not my lens, it's how all these lenses perform. Other people's experiences here have also confirmed it, especially those who tend to test more thoroughly, like me!

geroge: I've accepted that this lens @ 1.4 and distance is not a useable combo.

5-10 feet is the best distance for this lens @ 1.4 and best used indoors. outdoors, kick up the F value to 4+ and you're laughing. sharp sharp sharp!

Lets not forget this is a "whole at once" focusing lens, meaning the whole lens groups move back and forth as a whole while focusing.

Ideally, when focusing, all element groups inside the lens would shift positions relative to each other. These would be the requirements of the rigurous math. But since controlling each group's movement out of 15 or so would be very complex mechanically, they choose to move only the rear element(s) in the higher end lenses to obtain a decent sharpness throughout the whole focus range.

Well, the ef 50 f/1.4 being more conservative in this respect, should have a "sweet spot" at wich it delivers the best sharpness, and I'm willing to believe they've choosen this to be the distance at wich regularly portraits are done (since it's known as an infamous portraiture lens).

I've taken some distant mountains with mine, but I'm pretty sure they were all at f/5.6 or above. It's worth testing it though.

One thing I know for sure: the lens will stay.

Here's my thoughts concerning the 50 f/1.4 which is my walkaround lens on a full-frame 5D.

• I've found it to be virtually unusable until about f/1.8 or greater I don't know if that's due to calibration issues or just soft-focus. At 2.2 it's awesome. Maybe if I took 8 shots at 1.4 one would be usable. I really don't have the need to shoot wide-open.
• The advantages to having it be a 1.4 are many: brighter viewfinder image, low-light autofocus, etc.
• I read mention of the 50mm Zeiss f/1.4 in this thread (currently Nikon and Sony/Minolta mount). Unfortunately, those are manual focus lenses which I have no use for.

In high contrast scenes, f1.4 is not useable, not because of sharpness, but because of sensor bloom. I found that this effect get quickly out of control. But here is a shot at f1.4 that boarders on useability.

MIME changed to 'text/html' | Content warning: script

what does that have to do with shooting the F1.4 wide open? lol

blam wrote in post #2169858
what does that have to do with shooting the F1.4 wide open? lol

me? it doesn't. i find that shooting wide open doesn't yield the sharpest results anyway. slightly stopping down will work just great though.

ChopstickHero wrote in post #2169888
me? it doesn't. i find that shooting wide open doesn't yield the sharpest results anyway. slightly stopping down will work just great though.

Yes, that is the exact reason why this thread exists. Everyone agrees that this lens is superbly sharp at 1.8 and above. This thread is a discussion why we can't seem to get sharp results at 1.4 considering this lens is marketed as a 1.4.

Everyone who has a pic with this lens that is not taken at 1.4 wide open should post their pics here instead.

aIpha wrote in post #2170085
Yes, that is the exact reason why this thread exists. Everyone agrees that this lens is superbly sharp at 1.8 and above. This thread is a discussion why we can't seem to get sharp results at 1.4 considering this lens is marketed as a 1.4.

Everyone who has a pic with this lens that is not taken at 1.4 wide open should post their pics here instead.

gotcha.

this is wide open at f/1.4, 1/20 sec, ISO 800, hand held.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

I looked extensively at test results (photozone.de and slrgear.com) before buying. The interesting thing is that the f/1.8 "nifty fifty" has basically the same performance wide open as the f/1.4 stopped down to 1.8. So...US$75 for a 1.8 that's usable (barely) wide open, or US$305 for a 1.4 that's only usable at 1.8 and narrower. Hmmm...that's not too hard...