Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II - Good for indoor and lowlight?

the 50mm f/1.8 is very inexpensive and peforms very well in low-light compared to your current lenses ... it is currently $94 at bhphoto.com
50mm f/1.8 at canon price watch


if you can stretch your budget a little more, the well-regarded sigma 30mm f/1.4 is being discontinued soon and is very well priced at $284 at buydig.com (down from over $400)
30mm f/1.4 at canon price watch


a few things to consider:

• set your current lens to 50mm and see if that focal length suits you, you cannot zoom with the 50mm and you may find that you don't have enough room to frame your shots
• 30mm is a very good focal length for smaller cameras such as yours ... set your lens to 30mm and see for yourself ...
  
• the 50mm will fit on almost any canon camera, but the 30mm will only work well on smaller canon cameras (7d, xxd, xxxd, xxxxd, and rebels)

hope this helps ...

Just playing around with my camera and my kids in the house the 50mm seems fine. I do feel that 30mm might be a bit better option but for now as a beginner I am keeping my budget pretty tight and this one seemed priced right for the reviews I read.

The drawback to the Canon 50mm f/1.8 is that it will hunt to focus in low light. My experience with the Sigma 30mm (on Nikon) is that it is a much faster lens to focus.

bronjr said:

bronjr wrote:

Ok, so I have received advice about not buying any new lenses for my T4i until I learn to use the two kit lenses I already have. 18-55 and 55-250. But I don't find these lenses work as well indoors as I would like them to. I have been quite impressed with all the outdoor photos I have taken, but indoor not so much. Especially the pics I took this weekend at the Medieval Times dinner with my family. I came across this lens for sale for $110 and thought it may be what I need, the reviews seem great and I can afford it. Just wondering if anyone has indoor experience with this one before I make the purchase. Thanks!

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50mm primes are inexpensive to make and typically sharp. It's just not as useful indoors as something wider. A 50mm (on a crop sensor camera) isn't much use for photographing group scenes. If you can find a 35mm (or even a little wider) you'll have a more versatile indoors lens. Unless you have huge rooms where 50mm might be perfect.

The first issue should be to understand what's wrong with your photos. If you don't understand the problem, you could stick a $1,500 lens on the camera, but only get a marginal improvement in quality. Buying a $110 lens because it's inexpensive may not fix the problem. Indoor photography generally demands fast-aperture lenses with accurate auto-focus systems, and a camera with accurate auto-focus. If the lighting conditions are bad, there's not much that you can do about it except to accept a lower return, and end up with lots more frames to be thrown away. Which lenses are you considering, and why are you considering them other than price?

I started with the same lenses. After a lot of consideration I decided to get the 430EX II flash, which I mostly bounce. The reasons for me were:

1. The fast primes have very shallow Depth of Field wide open, whereas I could stop down the 18-55mm to f/8
2. The primes would be good for posed pictures but not for spontaneous single person and group shots where at times I'd want to zoom out to get a whole scene and other times zoom in to get an expression.

Before you jump in and say that you don't like the "flash" look, well taken, especially with bounce and/or diffusers, look very natural and the extra light (it is photo graphy after all) give better pictures.

I do now have the 50mm 1.8 and have taken a couple of nice photos indoor, but if I have the family around I'll put the 18-55 + flash on.

Lots of other threads on how to get the best out of flash.

AnthonyL said:

AnthonyL wrote:

I started with the same lenses. After a lot of consideration I decided to get the 430EX II flash, which I mostly bounce. The reasons for me were:

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+1 on the flash. Indoors, movement can be very restricted, and you might wish to take a wider shot to capture a group activity. Also, while that f/1.8 can work wit ha lot less light, the depth at such aperture is way shallow. If you want to take a picture of two people at the table about 8ft away, one a bit further from you than the other, at f/1.8 the near guy will be sharp, but the far guy will be a blur. If you want both sharp, you'll have to close down to about f/5.6, and there goes your low light advantage.

If you can use a flash, adding a good flash unit like a 430EX II can be incredible. It can be bounced of walls/ceilings, used wit ha diffuser or mini-softbox, or with colored gels. With T4i, you can take the flash off and use it wirelessly, to achieve some dramatic effects, which look nothing like your typical 'deer in the headlights' P&F flash shots.

I also agree with flash. What's more, the flash can be setup to contribute only it's IR focus assist, to help achieve fast focus, without firing any visible light. The T4i non-IR focusing light is pretty annoying and mood distroying. If I had to choose between my flash and my 50 1.8, I would keep the flash.

I would recommend the 50mm 1.8 plus a fairly cheap bounce flash as they both have use.

I had my Niece's first birthday over the weekend and took my 35+ year old Pentax f/2 50mm and my bounce flash on my Sony Nex 5N. The lens is really soft wide open, so for 90% of the photos I was sitting at F/4-5.6 with my aperture with my ISO at 200-400. I ended up underexposing the picture and had my EV compensation at .7 so I could take photos without a tripod.

So here is a 50mm lens and a 50mm with a bounce flash for comparison. Please be gentle, the photos aren't great! I think both tools are great to have! I preferred the lens alone if the lighting is nice enough, we started the party at 2pm and the closer we got to sunset, the more I needed to reply on the flash.

50mm Only













50mm + Bounce






Group photos were definitely a bit hard at 50mm!

bronjr said:

bronjr wrote:

Ok, so I have received advice about not buying any new lenses for my T4i until I learn to use the two kit lenses I already have. 18-55 and 55-250. But I don't find these lenses work as well indoors as I would like them to. I have been quite impressed with all the outdoor photos I have taken, but indoor not so much. Especially the pics I took this weekend at the Medieval Times dinner with my family. I came across this lens for sale for $110 and thought it may be what I need, the reviews seem great and I can afford it. Just wondering if anyone has indoor experience with this one before I make the purchase. Thanks!

Click to expand...

the "nifty fifty" 50mm 1.8 II is good. For indoors many prefer a wider lens but get it and see how you like large aperture primes

A flash is really the best way to address low light situations.

However, if you are really stuck on getting a new lens, skip the 50mm 1.8 and go with Sigma 30mm 1.4. You aren't like to get many in focus in low light with 50. Plus, you will often find its too long indoors. With the good light and stopped down, the 50mm will work well, but so does your kit.

Larry

YoThatLimp said:

YoThatLimp wrote:

I would recommend the 50mm 1.8 plus a fairly cheap bounce flash as they both have use.

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YoThatLimp said:

So here is a 50mm lens and a 50mm with a bounce flash for comparison. Please be gentle, the photos aren't great! I think both tools are great to have! I preferred the lens alone if the lighting is nice enough, we started the party at 2pm and the closer we got to sunset, the more I needed to reply on the flash.

Click to expand...

I would say the flash sample is a bit overexposed. I am not familiar with Sony system, but I would suggest setting flash exposure compensation (FEC) to -2/3 or so. If shooting with my 60D, I would try taking the flash off, putting the mini-softbox on it, and using the flash wireless from the side to simulate light from a window.

I primarily see a lens like 50 f/1.8 as a DoF control tool rather than low light tool. If light is low, I can pump up ISO, stick the camera on a tripod so I can use shutter speeds like 1/15, or use a flash, or just plug in my 500W halogen worklight and point it at the ceiling. But if I want shallow DoF for subject separation, I can only get that with a fast lens. (Short of faking it in Photoshop)