Canon EF 50mm f1.8 vs f1.4

Although both are ranked highly among portrait lenses on a 1.6x crop SLR, f1.8 is much cheaper (<$100) than f1.4 (~$300) and might be a good choice for starters. However, f1.4 has a lot of advantages over f1.8. As a long-term investment, f1.4 would probably be a better choice. There are also some other 50mm lenses from Canon: f1.2 L (very expensive ~$1600) and f2.5 (compact macro lens, but might not enough for macro photography). f1.4 might be be the best judging the image quality and price. Here are some comments from amazon.com on these lens.

1) Reviewer: Careful Critic
With the 50mm f1.8 lens available for less than a hundred dollars, why spend so much more to get the f1.4? The answer is, you may not need to. It all depends on your seriousness, budget, and how long you need your lens to last.

If you want a "starter lens" for shooting at 50mm (or with prime lenses in general), the f1.8 would be a great buy. The superficial quality is reportedly quite comparable. It might even be nice sometimes to feel as if a lens is "disposable." You could buy the f1.8 cheaply, regard it as a "play with it" lens, and get a nice introduction to "prime lens quality" - fixed-length lenses generally outperform zooms that cost substantially more money.

So if the f1.8 is such a great bargain, why would the f1.4 be among Canon's most all-time popular lenses? It's that the f1.8 can take the great shot within certain conditions, but the f1.4 delivers within a much wider range of conditions. In other words, "You get what you pay for," and we'll save the best for last.

Affordable but Solid Contruction: the f1.4 will likely have a much longer life than the cheaply fragile f1.8, and retain more resale value. It's an investment, rather than a commodity. And it'll be more certain on your camera and in your hand.

Full-Time Manual Focus: the f1.4 lets your camera autofocus, and then you can tweak further by hand without flipping a switch. The f1.8 requires switching back and forth between auto and manual focus.

Resistance to Abberation: in comparison tests, the f1.8 is more prone at wider apertures to vignetting (shadows around the corners), chromatic abbertation (color halos around high-contrast areas), and lens flare. For instance, lens flare within the f1.4 tends to be more tightly controlled - "in focus" - whereas a bright light source is more like to blow out the whole shot in the f1.8.

"Headroom": on one hand, 1.4 to 1.8 might not seem like much of a difference, and both lenses are (expectedly) "soft" wide open. But the 1.4 "gets up to sharp" more quickly ("sharp enough" by f2.0, "very sharp" by f2.8, and approaching "unreal sharp" by f4). The 1.8 can produce exceptional clarity too, but stopping down further to get it (and therefore slowing down your shutter). And when you need all the light you can get (at the expense of some sharpness), f1.4 is actually a LOT more light.

(For instance, shooting "wide open" for live performers in dim venues. Faster shutter for less motion blur. More light for better color. And the edges are definitely soft at 100% magnification, but relatively clear compared to the out-of-focus background. That "illusion of clarity" doesn't necessarily print so well, but resizes very nicely for the web.)

So the f1.8 can produce some stunning images, particularly in broad daylight and ideal lighting, but is less adaptable to challenging circumstances that the f1.4.

"The Best for Last...":

Now, with both these lenses, you get the advantage of marvelously wide aperture, which can be used for a tight focal plane that lets the background (or foreground distractions) fall quickly out of focus. This is of course a cornerstone of creative photography, and both lenses give you plenty to explore. (In practice, both deliver a pretty shallow depth of field at f2.8 in close-up shots.)

However, there is such a thing as "blur quality," called "bokeh," based on the number of aperture blades within the lens. The f1.8 has five, and the f1.4 has eight. The difference is that the blur from the f1.8 can be rather "choppy," and distant lights and specularities will appear pentagonal. Whereas the f1.4's distant lights will be more smoothly rounded, and the entire bokeh "buttery smooth."

In other words, there's more to quality than sharpness - there's also quality where your shot is LESS than sharp. And this is where the f1.4 becomes "a favorite lens" for some people, even at over three times the price of its diminuitive counterpart.

Make no mistake, the f1.8 would make an excellent "starter" lens. But the f1.4 is an exceptionally SERIOUS lens. $80 is a fine price to pay for a lens you might outgrow, $300 a worthy price for one you won't. So they're both bargains, just buy what's best for you.

(Addendum - There's also a 50mm f2.5 Macro lens at about 2/3 the price of the f1.4. If you NEED macro, it's reportedly pretty good, and for general purpose as well. But it's a) not even as fast as the f1.8, b) more difficult to manually focus, and c) not as creamy in the bokeh, with six aperture blades instead of eight. And Canon's 100mm version is better for macro work, both practically and qualitatively. The 50 Macro does become a contender, at a "middle price," if what you really need is one decent lens to do as many different things as possible, though none of them as well.)

2) Reviewer: G. Clark "hogwallow" (Houston, Texas USA)
When I worked as a photojournalist many years ago, 50mm was the "standard" lens in that it came closest to a real world perspective, especially for street photography. That is no longer always true because of the field-of-view crop of many cameras. Canon's popular digital Rebel and its successors, for example, have a 1.6X view that turns a 50mm lens into an 80mm lens. The 1D MARK II has a 1.3X view that makes it a 65mm lens.

So, if you're looking for a standard lens today, 35mm probably is closer to the mark on those cameras. And Canon has a couple of options there - a 35 f/1.4 that is great and expensive and a 35 f/2 that is a good value at about $250.

If you're still looking for a 50mm, however, there now are four options from Canon: 50/1.2, 50/1.4, 50/1.8 and 50/2.5. Here are the pros and cons of each:

50/1.2 is the newest, fastest and the most expensive at about $1,600. It is an "L" lens, which means it is more durably constructed than any of the others. The image quality is a cut above all of the others, especially at wider apertures. If money is no object, you'll probably want this one. But most of the rest of us have to ask the question whether it's 5X better than the 1.4.

50/1.4 is maligned by some for the softness of its images at f/1.4, but for me its a good, compact, low-light lens at a terrific price ($325). And the lens gets sharp quickly as you stop it down. It's sharp at f/2 and very sharp by f/2.8 with good contrast and colors.

50/1.8 is a step down from the 1.4 in speed, image quality, build quality and the smoothness and noise of its autofocus. But it is a big step up in value - a decent lens for about $80. If you're just getting into digital photography, this is a great lens to learn on until you get a better feel for the lenses that you want/need.

50/2.5 - this is a macro lens, although you can use it for general photography, too. I wouldn't recommend it. If you're doing macro photography, spend a little more for the 100/2.8, which is a sharper lens that gives you more subject distance. If you're looking for a standard lens, you'll appreciate the wider aperture of the 1.4.

All that said, of the 50mm Canon lenses, I think the 50/1.4 still offers the best mix of image quality and value.

3) Reviewer:S. Banerjee "Renaissance Man" (New York, NY)
The 50mm/f1.4 and 50mm/f1.8 are the BEST PORTRAIT LENSES that Canon offers. I own a Canon Rebel 2000 and Digital Rebel XT and have used both these lenses for several months. Pictures have been outstanding and my professional customers frequently cite the sharpness, light balance, depth of field, color reproduction, and "bokeh" (intentional blurring of background in portraits) from these lenses. Some people question the usefulness of a 50mm lens on digital SLRs with a 1.6x crop factor (i.e., 50mm lens = 80mm on a dSLR like the Digital Rebel XT)... I can vouch that the range is beautiful and relevant, focusing more closely on key subjects in portraits.

WHAT DO THESE LENSES HAVE IN COMMON? They are both fast (the f1.4 is blazing fast - dSLR can hardly keep up!), details are incredibly sharp (you can see individual hair strands), virtually no chromatic (color) aberration, no dithering or shadows in the corners, focusing is rapid and quiet (thanks to Canon's patented Ultrasonic USM technology) and photo quality parallels even my professional Canon "L" lenses. These fixed aperture lenses also provide superior pictures than telephoto lenses at 50mm because of better glass and aspherical elements.

HOW ARE THESE LENSES DIFFERENT? Having tested both lenses across 1500+ pictures, there are 5 key factors that make the f1.4 superior (justifying the $300+ price tag).

1) FASTER ESPECIALLY IN LOW LIGHT: Extra f-stop makes the f/1.4 better for indoor photos or low light. Great companion to the 480EX flash. I was able to take nearly 40 pics/min with flash and the fastest Sandisk 1GB Ultra II CF card

2) NO CHROMATIC ABERRATION, whereas the f/1.8 has slight yellowing of photos under certain lighting conditions or where edge definition is low

3) FULL AUTO/MANUAL FOCUSING RANGE: f/1.8 requires flipping between auto and manual using a switch, while f/1.4 can be manually "hot" focused/tweaked after auto focusing

4) SUPERIOR BUILD QUALITY: The f/1.8 is plastic and feels cheap, like it might fall apart anytime. The f/1.4 is metal, weighty, and is for the proud lens owner

5) CLEANER "BOKEH" - f/1.4 produces beautiful blurring of background in portraits ("bokeh") while the f/1.8 leaves less clean edges. Canon reviews suggest this is due to the f/1.4 having 8 lens elements vs. 5 elements for the f/1.8

WHICH LENS SHOULD YOU BUY? This is a question of utility vs. value. The f/1.4 costs over $300 while the f/1.8 can be acquired for under $75. The f/1.4 will last forever while the f/1.8 will probably break under normal use in a year. Does this justify the 4x price tag? If you are a budding photographer looking for a "play lens" then the f/1.8 will more than over-deliver. If you are a photo enthusiast who looks for "the perfect shot," you will want the f/1.4 because it surpasses every expectation (and so you're not left wondering, "what if"). If you are a photo professional, you already have the f/1.4 lens among your bag and are not reading this review. :-)