What lens do you recommend?

[kinhdoanhantoan]

Hello everyone, I have been testing a canon 18mm to 55mm lens on a Rebel to take pictures of people and fashion photography in various types of environments, but I feel this lens isn't quite the one I need. It's just not sharp enough, the images feel and look creamy fuzzy making certain key details get compromised, and the subject's perspective also changes in the photo. What I mean with perspective change is that with another camera (point and shoot) at the same angle, the person's face looks more proportionate and balanced in the photo than with the camera that has the 18mm to 55mm lens. Of course the point and shoot is fixed, but then I'm thinking I can do the same with the canon camera.
What do you recommend I use?
Should I spend more time with the 18mm to 55mm?

Anna

 

[photo1x1.com]

Hi Anna, welcome to the forum. Noticing that perspective change is great - not all people do

Since you like the look of your point and shoot - do you know what focal length that uses (or can you name the model)?
Traditional portrait lenses (so one for people) are usually around 85-135mm, but you will find people preferring 50mm and others that prefer 200mm. Especially the lower end will create that look you don´t seem to like.
Comming from a point and shoot, some people are disappoined by the sharpness of a DSLR because the larger sensor renders images differently (with much more shallow depth), while the small point and shoot sensors have a lot of sharpness from foreground to background.
But the 18-55mm is probably the kit lens, which is not good qualitywise, and other lenses are much sharper.

Maybe you can post a sample of an image you don´t like with the 18-55mm and name us the focal length of your p&s camera.

 

[Maui Photographer]

Most any lens that is adjustable is going to be fuzzy and do poorly in low light as they usually only go down to 3.5, unless you spend a toooon of money on it. For portraits I use a fixed 50mm for my main workhorse that goes down to 1.4, they make one that goes to 1.2, but for the price difference the increased quality you get is not worth the extra money. Yes, you have to run around a lot, but the image quality is soooo much better with fixed lenses. Fixed lenses usually make for crystal clear photos great in low light. I have lots of other fixed lenses and a 70-200 etc., but a 50mm is the lens you need as a base for people photography, especially portraits.

Check out Sigma, they have really affordable high quality glass for the price.

 

[robbins.photo]

Hello everyone, I have been testing a canon 18mm to 55mm lens on a Rebel to take pictures of people and fashion photography in various types of environments, but I feel this lens isn't quite the one I need. It's just not sharp enough, the images feel and look creamy fuzzy making certain key details get compromised, and the subject's perspective also changes in the photo. What I mean with perspective change is that with another camera (point and shoot) at the same angle, the person's face looks more proportionate and balanced in the photo than with the camera that has the 18mm to 55mm lens. Of course the point and shoot is fixed, but then I'm thinking I can do the same with the canon camera.
What do you recommend I use?
Should I spend more time with the 18mm to 55mm?

Anna

Greetings Anna.

If your seeing perspective distortion from your DSLR, meaning the persons face looks different or distorted, the solution is simple. Back up. Increase the distance between you and your subject. Even if this means you have to shoot a little wider than what you really want, that's fine. You can always crop it to your desired composition in post.

The other thing to keep in mind is that on your point and shoot, your dealing with a smaller sensor, as well as most likely a set aperture that you cannot change. On the DSLR you have a larger sensor, and you can control the aperture of your lens.

So if you want to increase your DOF - depth of field, stop down the lens. Set the aperture number higher. This lets in less light, but it also increases your DOF so that more elements in the photo will be sharp even if they are further away from your focal point.

So try this, take your 18-55mm, back up until your about 9 feet or so away from your subject, then shoot in aperture priority mode and set your aperture to F/5.6.

Check your results, see what you think.

 

[bread]

I recommend the Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM. On a crop body, it will become equivalent to somewhere around 85mm, which is perfect for portraits. It's dirt cheap and the same price as the old nifty-fifty, or even less if you snag it refurbished. The build quality is a HUGE step up from the old Mk ii version and optically is the same - which is good. The 50mm f/1.8 ii was known to have really good sharpness stopped down and really wide aperture for the price. The new version has an STM motor, which is okay, nothing great, but much nicer than the micro motor of its predecessor, and 7 rounded blades which will develop some nice out-of-focus details.

I usually interpret my copy's max aperture as f/2.8. I don't have to go much wider very often and the sharpness really improves from f/1.8 by f/2.8.

You can still choose to shot at f/1.8 and get sharp images, as long as you feel like spending a little time in post sharpening them. Be careful that you understand how shallow the depth of field becomes at f/1.8 however - sharpening won't be enough to bring most out of focus areas into acceptable, let alone, sharp focus.

Acting as an ~85mm lens on your camera, at f/2.8, the subject isolation you will be able to achieve will still be pretty comparable to anything at f/1.8 (unless you are up in your subject's nose) and the sharpness will definitely be worth it.

To answer you original question, the nifty-fifty is way sharper than the 18-55mm at almost all apertures. I have previously owned the 18-55mm II and STM, and neither were any sharper than just "decent". The 50mm 1.8 stopped down between f/4 and f/8 is pretty comparable to much more expensive high end lenses - and your 18-55mm can only obtain a max aperture of 3.5 - 5.6 (depending on focal length) anyway.

Link: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Refurbished Lens ($90 at current writing)
It's out of stock now, but watch closely, as I have seen it jump back into stock pretty quickly before.

If you decide to go this route, you could sell your 18-55mm in to KEH Camera or B&H for a decent enough price to almost cover the cost of the upgrade entirely.