The almighty 50mm Nikkor.... What?

[ksmattfish]

Does Canon have an equivilant?

Everybody has an equivalent. Before zoom lenses became popular the kit lens for 35mm SLRs was a 50mm lens around f/2.

 

[boris152]

My "Canon equivelent" was only $70. Outstanding! If only it wasn't cropped on my camera body so it was easier to use indoors. So light . . . so good.

As far as f/1's go, the only one I know of is the Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1. Inexpensive? Yeah, at $3,895.00 on Adorama, it's a bargain. And it's for rangefinder cameras, not slr's.

 

[boclcown]

Wow. Sounds awsome.

Can anyone recomend the best, cheap, zoom lense?

 

[ksmattfish]

There's a 50mm f/0.95 for vintage Canon rangefinders.

The Norita 6x6 SLR comes with an awesome Noritar 80mm f/2 (fast for medium format).

 

[LWW]

Wow. Sounds awsome.

Can anyone recomend the best, cheap, zoom lense?

If you are shooting with a Nikon body look for a Nikkor 70-210 F4 AF.

This lens is commonly found for under $150 used on ebay. It is every bit as sharp as my 80-200 2.8 Nikkor and probably weighs less than half as much.

I'm a shallow DOF junkie so I don't regret getting the 2.8 but I should have kept the F4 as well.

LWW

 

[danalec99]

Don't forget the $1600 50mm f/1.2

Oh yeah!

They actually have a 50mm f/1!

Yeah, but they don't make 'em anymore. Per the reviews I heard it wasn't a stellar performer.

 

[boclcown]

Hm. So, when I see an apature value on a lense, it indicates it's maximum ap?

 

[Mihai]

Yup! And if you see 2 on a zoom, the large one is for small focal length, and the small one (large number) is for the telephoto end.

M.

 

[chorleyjeff]

In my opinion, Prime lenses blow away zoom lenses any day of the week..Especially the 50mm. Just because you cannot zoom in does not make a prime lens less essential in your bag..it just means you have to know where and when to move closer or further away from your object. Prime lenses tend to be a lot more sharper than a zoom lens...The 50mm especially...wheather you get the 1.8 or 1.4, it doesn't matter, either are very sharp because you are able to stop down that low, making it a SUPER FAST lens. The faster the lens, the sharper the image, correct?

Wrong.
Max. aperture does not determine sharpness

 

[Tiberius]

Not DIRECTLY, but in general, a fast lens stopped down to, say, f/4 will be sharper than an f/4 lens wide open.

 

[Rob]

Not DIRECTLY, but in general, a fast lens stopped down to, say, f/4 will be sharper than an f/4 lens wide open.

Indeed, it's probably worth mentioning that most (all?) lenses perform at their best a couple of stops shy of wide open. It's pretty rare to shoot at the widest aperture with a prime of this length, as the depth of field tends to be shallower than your subject, so a 50mm f1.8 prime stopped to about f4 is about perfect for a portrait of a person where you want nice background bokeh, but the whole face in focus from nose to back of head.

Compare that with a 28-70mm zoom (at 50mm) which has a maximum aperture of f4.5ish, your best performance will be at about f11, resulting in a longer exposure, less background bokeh and probably not as great an image.

Ok, so that's a biassed example, but the majority of my shots are <15ft to the subject distance, candid portrait type shots taken at about f2.8-f4. For this kind of thing, a nice cheap prime is the king.

Rob

 

[AtlPikMan]

Just how good is the 50mm in Low Light? I mean how good is it for night shots, anyone got examples?

 

[Joves]

It is very good in low light and, no I dont have any examples handy. If you want to shoot cityscapes at night the nifty 50 is nice.

 

[AtlPikMan]

It is very good in low light and, no I dont have any examples handy. If you want to shoot cityscapes at night the nifty 50 is nice.

Just what i needed to know...Thanks!

 

[Garbz]

Well for a given definition of good anyway. Lets just say you can shoot at f/1.8. The sharpness is a no go for anything that requires good detail or high contrast up until around f/2.8 though

The 50mm f/1.8 is crap wide open. There's no other way to describe it, and in reality you can't expect much else given it's price. It's also the reason the 50mm f/1.4 is so popular. At f/2 it's already a tac sharp lens.