Problem with my 50 1.8?

I don't recall my 1.8 being sharp wide open....BUT this shot looks more compressed. It' doesn't look like focus is off or anything.

you seem to be pretty close with the 50mm. Make sure you are with in the minimum focusing distance. If you are too close it will not be sharp because it wont focus.

Only thing i've done to those was fix the color balance and crop a certain section of the image. "Film" plane of the camera was almost 2ft away.

Is that autofocused or manual focused? I haven't been able to get my nifty fifty to reliably autofocus at 1.8 at all.

Manual. All looked good in the viewfinder for what that's worth. All focus points were on the "P" in Padron.

I thought this was a great lens ?? I've heard so many rave about it but if it's so great then why doesn't it auto-focus @ f/1.8 and so many are getting rid of the 1.8 and going for the 1.4 . I also read somewhere here on the forum that the 1.8 are only good for a certain amount of shutter actuations , is this true ?? If so it should be a $50.00 lens instead of a $90.00+ lens .

I think that is about normal for the difference between f1.8 and f2.8 on that lens. F1.8 would rarely be used for detail work anyway. In normal practice, it is fine, but still preferably to use at f2.2+ if you can.

Doh, I didn't mean to say manual in my post, all were done with AF.

I need to find an old image I took at 1.8 with my last 50 1.8 I had. A lot better. I just need to decide if I want to send it back considering how unhappy I am with it right now. Store credit towards a 35 f/2 or 50 f/1.4...

I did a test just now... I'll post it up in a sec.

Celestron wrote in post #9697848
I thought this was a great lens ?? I've heard so many rave about it but if it's so great then why doesn't it auto-focus @ f/1.8 and so many are getting rid of the 1.8 and going for the 1.4 . I also read somewhere here on the forum that the 1.8 are only good for a certain amount of shutter actuations , is this true ?? If so it should be a $50.00 lens instead of a $90.00+ lens .

People rave about the quality of the pictures for its price range. So people overlook the autofocus issues and build quality more than for other lenses (cue build quality bashing of the 17-55mm, heh). I haven't read anything about the 1.8 going out; that's the 1.4, whose wonky AF design leads to a certain kind of failure that can't be prevented.

If you got enough light why use F1.8...??? Some people think they always have to go "wide open".
Edit: And if you do not have enough light: make more. For shots like the OP you would not need that high ISO and low aperture if you just put a bit more light on your subject. Or put your camera on a tripod and use a slower shutter speed.

Choose your aperture for the DOF you want and not "as low as you can go".

I got my tests up https://photography-on-the.net …php?p=9698263#p​ost9698263

I agree with vk2gwk. Most lens' peak sharpness happen between f/4-f/8. With product shots and macro like shots, small aperture like f/11 will generally produce more desirable results.

Celestron wrote in post #9697848
I thought this was a great lens ?? I've heard so many rave about it but if it's so great then why doesn't it auto-focus @ f/1.8 and so many are getting rid of the 1.8 and going for the 1.4 . I also read somewhere here on the forum that the 1.8 are only good for a certain amount of shutter actuations , is this true ?? If so it should be a $50.00 lens instead of a $90.00+ lens .

The 50mm 1.8 is a "great" lens and well worth its 90 dollar price tag. At 1.8 i found it to be a bit soft and starts to sharpen up at 2.8. At 4.0 mines about as sharp as any L series zoom lens i own. I havent heard anything about it only being good for a certain number of shutter actuations. I have taken good care of mine and have had no problem with it in the 3 years since i bought it. If i where to guess i would say it has over 10k pictures through it, and still going strong. When it finally goes, ill go out that same day and buy another!!

I would try liveview and manual focus to see how sharp it is or isn't at f/1.8