Which low light lens to buy?

[HarryLally]

The EF 17-40L is only f4. The best standard zoom for the 450D is the EF-S 17-55 f2.8 and, yes, IS is very useful in low light, especially at the longer end.

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/178-canon-ef-s-17-55mm-f28-usm-is-test-report--review

If you can't run to that, check out the equivalent Tokina and Tamron f2.8 zooms.

As regards the Sigma 20mm f1.8, check the test here:

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/297-sigma-af-20mm-f18-ex-test-report--review

All 'fast' lenses like this are 'soft' (i.e. not totally sharp) wide open, at least at the edges and that is usually not a problem if you're taking e.g. portraits, where your subject will be in the centre of the frame. The lens will sharpen up as you stop down, of course, as you would do for landscapes and scenics.

Also, for low light on a budget, don't overlook the 'nifty-fifty', the cheap and cheerful (but pretty good optically) Canon EF 50mm f1.8 which complements a slower 17-55 zoom well.

Michael

 

[Roentarre30]

Hi all,
I have an EOS 450d and am looking for a good low light lens.
I don't like using flash in low light photography as it take away the
ambience.
i am looking for:
1.Good low light performer.
2. Preferably zoom lens
3.I will be taking pictures that are relatively close for example of
family and friends in a restaurant, swimming pool,hotel
room,etc(Incandescent environments,dimly lit,candle light dinner,etc)
4. I would also like the lens to be IS as I am new and night
photography without IS or tripod is impossible for me.
Please help.I have looked at a few lenses namely Ef16-35mmL IS,17-40
L USM,EF24-105mm L IS.
am looking for a good quality lens and where my flash utilization can
be minimalized.
Thanks

With 16-35mm, I like to see the bokeh rendering with the aperture f2.8

Otherwise 17-40L is in generally microscopicly sharper than 16-35 between f4 and f5.6

Ef 24-105mm is ok as a general zoom. Above 90mm is prone to PF and soft images wide open...

http://www.roentarre.com/Gallery.aspx?id=1&lid=6

--
Roentarre, Melbourne, Australia
http://www.roentarre.com
http://www.roentarre.com/Blog.aspx?id=4

 

[roymbrown]

Soft just means not sharp. Yes, its not good, but you have to be realistic. At apertures of 1.8 or wider, you are probably going to see some softness. You can spend more and reduce the softness, but even then, the depth of field is so shallow that some of what you are shooting will be at least slightly out of focus anyway.

I don't think 2.8 is wide enough for truly low light situations. I have the same camera and just tried my 50mm 1.4 stopped down to 2.8. In a well lit room (artificial light only), at ISO 800, the shutter speed comes out between 1/15 and 1/50 depending on where I am shooting (quite usable). With dimmer lighting, like what you'd see in a restaurant, shooting at ISO 1600 (pretty noisy), I get between 1/10s and 1/4s (not good).

The 17-55 2.8 is a great lens, and will probably cover most situations pretty well for you, but you'll want a wider aperture (1.8 or wider) prime for really low light stuff. As HarryLally says, the Canon 50mm 1.8 would complement the 17-55 2.8 nicely for very little extra money, though the more expensive, wider angle, primes might be more useful (I like the look of 50mm on a crop sensor, but it can be challenging getting everyone in the picture).

 

[Staale S]

1. I've owned the Sigma. Yes, it's soft and dreamy at f/1.8. Unusably so, in my opinion. I'd look at it as a 20mm f/2.8 that can be stopped up further for fun and games but not for anything you'd actually use for anything. All lenses are a tad soft wide open but the 20 f/1.8 really has no shame whatsoever. And yes, softness is a Bad Thing, generally speaking.

2. IMHO f/2.8 is almost useless for low-light shooting. Unless it has IS, in which case it is very useful indeed, but only in certain situations, where the subject is perfectly static for about a tenth of a second or so. (If it breathes, it won't be.)

3. IS is not a generally useful thing for low-light, see above. IS keeps the camera still so that you can use long shutter times. If the subject moves during this time, the interesting bits of your photo will be unsharp anyway. Unless, of course, you want photos with very sharp furniture with blurry people sitting on it.

My opinion of the lenses you are considering, from a low light point of view:

Siggy 20 f/1.8: Pointless. It must be stopped down at least one full stop to be sharp. And they you are at f/2.5 or so, which doesn't really cut it.
17-40 f/4L: Useless. f/4 gets you nowhere.
20/24 f/2.8: Very very very marginal. f/2.8 isn't enough.

Consider the 24-105 f/4L IS or 17-55 f2/.8L IS if you want to go down the IS-for-static-subjects road. The 17-55 is probably the better match for your camera and is hard to beat as an all-round lens.

For fast lenses the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 or 50mm f/1.4 are respectable choices at a reasonable price (the Canon 24 f/1.4,35 f/1.4, 50 f/1.2, 85 f/1.2 L's are more than merely respectable but at a not-reasonable-at-all price). The Sigma 50mm is preferable to the Canon one because it is actually designed to be used wide open; the Canon 50 is somewhat mushy up to about f/2.8 which kind of negates the point of having it. And there is always the Canon 50mm F/1.8 which is a decent performer and can be had for a song.

 

[lespurgeon]

17-40 f/4 not a good choice for low light.

I'd say the 17-55 f/2.8 as you have a crop camera, or if you want to save some $ and want even better low-light performance the Sigma 30 f/1.4 or Canon 28 f/1.8.

 

[dejanuts]

There's been lots of good suggestions and replies to your query and considering your admitted lack of experience and depth in photography I'd like to recommend another lens to try and that is the Canon 35mm F2. I don't own it but on your crop sensor camera it would work out to 56mm which is "standard" range. Not wide and not tele.

The two main attractions here is cost, under $250 online, and speed, f2.0 is not too shabby. With this lens you should be able to find a reasonable balance between what you are trying to do as well as learn what you want from your equipment and once you've gained some experience, flip it on ebay for almost your cost (compare the completed listing prices to what online shops are selling it for) and invest in the lens you eventually decide you really want. It's not L quality glass, but based on what I've read, I seriously doubt you would be disappointed. Here's a review:

http://photozone.de/canon-eos/157-canon-ef-35mm-f2-test-report--review

The negative characteristics of this lens might actually work in your favor for the type of shooting you seem to be interested in.

I would hate to see you or anyone learning a new hobby and investing kilobucks in equipment they may or may not reap an expected benefit from.

Go slow, experiment and enjoy. For many, Photography can be a gear driven hobby, so this will likely not be the last lens decision you make...

 

[mmullen]

Good low-light photos are more the result of skill than special equipment, knowing how to work around the limitations imposed.

Having said that, for your stated purposes, the EF-S 17-55 f2.8 IS is hard to beat for versatility, particularly since you prefer handheld. For very poorly lit environments where there is subject motion you will want to pair it with indirect flash. Flash has a bad name but only because there are very few are experts with the ability to use it properly. With modern high-ISO performance f2.8 is the equivalent of f1.4 of just a few years ago. Going to larger and larger apertures tends to be counter-productive in terms of required depth of field for most uses.

Image stabilization is VERY useful for low-light hand-held indirect flash photography, especially when it is important to preserve the ambience. Learn up on a technique called "dragging the shutter" for hopelessly dark environments with some subject motion.
--
Mike Mullen

 

[SNGX1327]

Ok guys,
I have been doing a lot of searching too.Thanks for all the help here
and pointing out the Sigma 20mm
Now final round of questions:
1.I have heard that sigma 20mm is soft at F1.8.What does that mean?Is
that a bad thing

softness is a word to describe the image quality. a 'sharp' image is one that captures all the detail, a 'soft' image might look a little... soft. for instance, if you take a picture that is out of focus, it looks soft, blurry, mushy, etc. it's sort of hard to explain.

it's not a good thing, but it's not a horrible thing. most lenses are soft wide open. with the sigma 20mm f/1.8 the corners were much softer than the center of the image. is this bad? well for landscapes, yes. but if you are taking a pic of a group of people in a dimly lit restaurant there's a good chance nobody is going to notice if the corners of the image are a little soft.

especially at f/1.8 where the DOF so narrow that the corners will most likely be out of focus anyway...

2.In case I decide to go for Canon F2.8 lenses, are they going to be
suitable for low light photos as mentioned above?

probably. i've owned several fast primes (sigma 20mm f/1.8, canon 28mm f/1.8, canon 50mm f/1.8) and i often stop them down to f/2-f/2.8 to get a larger DOF. i can still typically handhold the lenses.

3.I am a noob so how important is IS in lenses that I am looking at
for night handheld shots?

some people swear by it, but in all of my experience i've found that faster lenses demolish the IS lenses in terms of how the images come out. in my opinion IS is great for things like outdoors at dusk taking a landscape photo, or when using a long \lens i.e. a 70-200mm lens, or 400mm prime lens.

heck i have a lot of pictures from my 20mm f/1.8 shot at around 1/40s-1/60s. the background will be sharp but the people will be blurry because they are moving. this is a situation where IS would not help. IS might let you hold the lens at 1/10s or 1/5s, but if the people are going to be blurry at 1/40s then you aren't really accomplishing anything.

there are better techniques you can use to achieve sharp photos.

Lenses I am considering:
A.Sigma 20mm F1.8
B.Canon EF 17-40L F2.8
C.Canon EF 20mm/24mm F2.8

those are pretty good choices. i used to own the sigma 20mm f/1.8, but i ended up selling it (and i still wish i hadn't). the reason i sold it is because it turned out to be TOO wide for what i wanted. i ended up getting the canon 28mm f/1.8 USM lens. it sells for about $400, and the thing i love about it is that it is compact -- the sigma is a very large lens, it's not entirely portable or inconspicuous. you wlil attract some attention with that thing! the canon 28mm is very small and light, and i like the focal length.

i assume you mean the 16-35mm f/2.8L for B? this is a good choice if you can afford it. so is the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS. another great choice, but expensive. i like the prime lens idea best because it's the smallest and lightest setup.

but here is another suggestion i have for you -- have you considered purchasing an extrenal flash unit? i know you said that you hate how a flash will ruin the ambience of a scene, but an external flash will let you bounce and diffuse the light and it iwll preserve the ambience of the scene much better than the harsh diret flash from the on-camera flash.

also i have a tip, something i figured out in my quest to get good night time photos. set up your camera thusly:

first in custom functions, go to the flash sync page and set it to a "second curtain sync". this means that the flash will fire at the end of the exposure, and not the beginning. this will sort of change the dynamics when taking flash photos with long exposures.

now shoot in M mode, and set the exposure to about 1/15s-1/30s, f/5.6-f/8, ISO800-1600. be sure to use the flash.

what this will do is the flash will fire at the end of the exposure and freeze most of the scene in place (i.e. people). but the long exposure will let the ambient light soak into the background. you w/ill get a photo that looks more natural, and represents more what the eyes see. compare this to just using the flash normally in P mode (say, 1/60s and f/5.6) which will have a bright, almost overexposed person in the foreground with a completely dark background.

 

[vor]

The below is good advice, although you need not use "M" mode to accomplish it... on Canon cameras, in Av mode (Aperture priority), you will get a similar result using flash. I also like second-curtain sync; it yields more natural-looking light trails and motion blur in low-light flash photography. All the best,

Victor

also i have a tip, something i figured out in my quest to get good
night time photos. set up your camera thusly:

first in custom functions, go to the flash sync page and set it to a
"second curtain sync". this means that the flash will fire at the end
of the exposure, and not the beginning. this will sort of change the
dynamics when taking flash photos with long exposures.

now shoot in M mode, and set the exposure to about 1/15s-1/30s,
f/5.6-f/8, ISO800-1600. be sure to use the flash.

what this will do is the flash will fire at the end of the exposure
and freeze most of the scene in place (i.e. people). but the long
exposure will let the ambient light soak into the background. you
w/ill get a photo that looks more natural, and represents more what
the eyes see. compare this to just using the flash normally in P mode
(say, 1/60s and f/5.6) which will have a bright, almost overexposed
person in the foreground with a completely dark background.