100% Crops
f/1.8
f/2.0
f/2.2
f/2.5
f/2.8
The Test:
I originally actually tried this test with the Canon EOS 5D but decided to do the final test with the 500D mainly due to the fact that the 5D does not have live view.
The subject is a stick of lip-balm sitting on my Macbook Pro. The Nifty Fifty was set to focus to it’s closest capable focus. With the 500D in live view at 10x magnification I used the macrorail to precisely focus on the stick of lip-balm. All photos were taken with a remote to help reduce vibrations.
All photos were taken with the following settings:
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
Aperture: 1.8-2.8
Iso: 100
Flash Power: 1/8
After taking the photos, they were introduced into Lightroom to simply balance out the lighting since the same flash setting was used over one stop of light.
Lightroom “Brightness” Adjustments
f/1.8: -10
f/2.0: 0
f/2.2: +15
f/2.5: +25
f/2.8: +50
I first have the original 5 photos, then 100% crop versions of those photos.
Conclusion:
My copy of the Nifty Fifty seems to get a wee bit sharper from f/2.2 and on. F/1.8 and f/2.0 seem a tab less sharp, but not by much. I think the Nifty Fifty is very capable of producing sharp photos wide open when the focusing is correct. However the autofocus does not seem to be able to be dead on most of the time and with thin DOF produced by large apertures like 1.8-2.8 the Nifty Fifty will appear to be "soft" mainly due to poor autofocus. I plan to do a autofocus test some time.
EDIT: I am not endorsed by or endorsing Chap Stick nor Apple Inc.
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