is this a good lens for night pics?

lawrencek328 · Nov 12, 2013

hey guys love the forum you guys are great help

im just getting started with my dslr been a few months. people on the forum recommended a 50mm f/1.8 lens to take pictures during night time

would this one be sufficient enough?
Amazon.com: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Standard AutoFocus Lens - Gray Market: Camera & Photo

raventepes · Nov 12, 2013

That lens would be alright. What do you plan to put it on?

lawrencek328 · Nov 12, 2013

canon t5i sorry should've said in the post

raventepes · Nov 12, 2013

Yeah...it should be alright, though I'd highly recommend getting a flash to go with it. Even the best, brightest lenses need assistance, depending on how dark it is, and weather or not you're shooting long exposures on a tripod

lawrencek328 · Nov 12, 2013

shooting hand held mode, I have my built in camera flash I want to get good with before I spend couple hundred on an external flash

bratkinson · Nov 13, 2013

As you will quickly learn, the built in camera flash is good for perhaps the first 10 feet. Beyond that, it's useless. If you have to resort to using it, consider some means of shielding/diffusing it so it doesn't completely wash out (overexpose) faces.

As for a fast lens such as f1.8 for night shots, that's only 1/3 of the exposure triangle. Shutter speed and ISO speed also play a part in every exposure. There's plusses and minuses for setting changes on each of them.

While opening 'that wide' at f1.8 sounds like a low-light photographers dream, the depth of field (aka 'plane of focus'...I think of it as one or more sheets of plywood parallel with the camera sensor) can get quite thin. So thin that someones' nose is in perfect focus and their ears are not. As the DOF calculator shows Online Depth of Field Calculator, at 10 feet and f1.8, the DOF is about 8". But at 5 feet, 1.2 inches!

I'm not trying to steer you away from the 'nifty fifty' lens. Learning the ins and outs of photography, foremost, the exposure triangle, is critical to getting great pictures. Although much can come from books and online tutorials, a whole lot more is gained from going out and shooting, then looking at the results. For what it's worth, I do a major portion of my photography in low light conditions. Learning how to take shots with, say, nothing but a single street light for illumination, is a great way to spend many hours enjoying our hobby!

Big Mike · Nov 13, 2013

What do you mean by 'pictures during night time'?

Will it be under artificial lighting or just out under the night sky? Or maybe photos of the night sky?

A lens like the 50mm F1.8 is handy for 'lower light' situations because it has a large maximum aperture, which in turn allows for a faster shutter speed than an average zoom lens would. However, outdoors at night is much less than 'lower light'....and even a lens like that won't necessarily help you get great photos.

One option would be to use your own lighting (flash)...and as mentioned, the built-in flash isn't a great option.

Another option would be to put the camera on a tripod, which would allow you to use much longer shutter speeds without getting blurry photos from camera shake.

lawrencek328 · Nov 13, 2013

low light situations, out door lighting at events and such

Big Mike · Nov 13, 2013

It's impossible to tell you what will or will not work, as we don't really know how much light you will have to work with...but in general, the more exposure you can get, the better. That means a lens with a large max aperture. The 50mm F1.8 is the cheapest option for that, but there are better options. The 50mm F1.4 is a better lens and F1.4 is a little bigger than F1.8. Canon also makes a 50mm F1.2 and an 85mm F1.2 which would give you an even larger maximum aperture. But those lenses would each cost 3-4 times what your camera cost.

So what you will likely end up having to do, is to use a high ISO setting. This will result in more and more digital noise, but that's your only option, short of adding your own light.

Now, there are cameras that are better for low light (less noise at higher ISO levels) but they are going to be a good deal more expensive than yours was.

In a nut shell, shooting in low light (and doing it well) isn't easy. If you aren't worried about trying to pull off award winning shots, it's doesn't have to be so expensive.