Museum and Aquarium Walking Around Lens

I was wondering if the 50L is a good choice for FF shooting in dark places (museums and aquariums) where you have short distances from exhibits, low light and absolutely no flash allowed. If not, what's better for FF? 50 seems to be a nice focal length and I'm worried that 85 is too long. I'm concerned about shooting through glass displays and tanks under very low light and how difficult it is to get the focus right with the extremely narrow DOF. I've been using my 16-35L but I feel sometimes like I need more reach and f/1.2 sounds very tempting and intriguing.

Additionally, is the 50L going to work very well inside of the indoor rides at Disneyland such as Pirates, Small World, Haunted House, Captain Nemo and Splash Mountain? I've been using my 24-105L and 16-35L with mixed results. Pirates is the toughest one and it has some pretty spectacular sets that I would like to get shot but it doesn't work well at f/2.8 without a flash and that's pretty much a no-no (the flash) inside there. I also want to start playing with the HDTV video in the 5DMkII under low light conditions.

I had a great walk around an aquarium with my Xsi+Sigma 30mm f/1.4, so I'd imagine a 50L on a full-frame body would be absolutely spectacular!

This was hand held in the Chicago Aquarium with the 24-105 IS f/4 L

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Id also recommend a cp filter to cut out the glare of fishtank

50mm f/1.4 with the 40D:

The aquarium? Its so obvious... shouldn't you really be using a fish-eye lens? Hyuk-hyuk-hyuk!

I second the 24-105 L.

Tarzanman wrote in post #8498882
The aquarium? Its so obvious... shouldn't you really be using a fish-eye lens? Hyuk-hyuk-hyuk!

Thankfully, someone else saved me the embarrassment of this comment by beating me to it!!!

100 macro.

IMO, a fixed focal length is going to be a bit hard to capture interesting things within the frame.
You have an impressive gear list, why limit yourself to the 50L?
If it were me, I would take the 16-35 and the 70-200 FL IS with you.

You might not be able to get EVERY shot, but you'll get most of it. Especially with you 16-35, you get some really cool looking perspectives than your average, "Hey look at my pictures, we went on vacation" shots. Also, the reason I suggested the telephoto is that most, if not all animals are behind a cage or wall. The 50L might be too short for you.

when you are enjoying a day out in zoo, you don't want to lug all the equip around. Last time I went i brought lots of stuff and the 100 stayed on most of the time.

The 24-105 with CP worked well for me last weekend at the Metropolitan in NYC. I also brought the 50 1.4. The zoom is so handy and it got the most use.

I've had great luck with the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro in aquariums and museums, but it's not really a walk around, more specialized. The hood great for pressing up against the glass to reduce glare cause it's totally round.

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