50mm lens

[krm]

I've been told the next thing I need for my Canon Rebel xt is a 50mm lens for portrait shots. With my child's prom and graduation approaching I think it's time to be sure I have the right gear. But currently I use a 28-135 IS lens, will the 50mm bring more to the table for these type of events or should I just save my money for a new flash or bag?? Also, what is the best distance for using a 50mm lens?

Thanks

[Edmund]

Hi, how you doing. First of all a 50mm lens is not a portrait lens. In the old days before zoom lenses everyone had 50mm lense in their bag as their standard lens. I use Nikon gear but no difference. I had a beautiful NIKKOR 105 mm portrait lense.
Take your 28-135mm place it on 33mm and you now have the same field of view as a 50mm. (OPPS ....take into consiseration your sensor size factor Nikon's is 1.5) I'm not sure what Cannon is but someone will come along and correct my higher math. So any way set you lense around 33-35mm and you are now at 50mm. That would be exactly what you would see if you placed a fixed 50mm on your camera. Take some pictures at this focal length and you will see what distance you have to be to get good head shots etc. Also generally speaking a zoom will not be at it's best when at 28mm (35mm equiv.=44mm using 1.6) so you are almost there now and you would probably want to use a wide aperature to blur background so the pictures may not be that sharp with your existing lense.
Eddie

[Chuck S.]

Eddie, a 50 mm lens, when mounted on a Canon DLSR using an APS-C sensor (the 20D, 30D, 40D and all the varieties of Rebel) has a cropping factor of 1.6, leading to an equivalence of 80 mm. That would put it in the range of a portrait lens, at least from a 'fill the frame at a distance' point of view. It also has a wide aperture of f/1.8 (or f/1.4 or f/1.2 if you want to spend some more $$), which allows for considerable adjustment of depth of field to soften the background

A somewhat longer lens, like the 85 mm f/1.8 (digital equivalent: 136 mm), will require a greater camera-to-subject distance but will flatten facial features (especially the nose) more than the 50 mm. That lens may be worth consideration for portraiture.

A good experiment might be to use a medium zoom (17-85, 28-80, 28-135) at several zoom settings to see which portion of the range provides the most pleasing portraits. Then, if that low f-stop 'speed' is needed, select the fixed lens size that works best for you based on that optimum zoom setting.

[Not4wood]

I have the 18-135 Kit Lens for my D80 and its perfect for Portraiture.

The 50mm prime lens is not enough, it does have a very good rating for sharpnesss and clarity but I don't know if you want a Lens that sharp for portraits. LOL

I did go to that fast rehearsal on Thursday Nite and I shot heavy. I am almost ready to start posting but I am going to the full dress rehearsal this afternoon to give me a lot more editing to do.

The one thing I will say is I can't get over how much the Raw opens up the versatility of the sensor. Even in very low light where in the old film process you couldn't get any details. Now with this high quality sensor the details are still there and all you need to do is bring it up in ACR and then its all workable. I will start posting these soon.

[GaryK]

Eddie

Just a quick question.
Would a 50mm lens on her XT not render the same image size as adjusting the Zoom to 50mm on the same XT ???
Maybe I missed something... which is not uncommon.

[Chuck S.]

Gary, sure it would. 50 mm is 50 mm, whether it's a fixed or zoom lens. The advantages of fixed lenses vs. equivalent zooms are often (but not always) better optical quality and a wider maximum aperture. Disadvantage is you have to use your feet to 'zoom' in and out...

[lowbone]

Just my two cents. I have the 50mm f 1.4 and the 85mm f 1.8. Personally If in a large enough room I prefer the 85mm f 1.8 as the subject doesn't seem to be as self concious when the lens is farther away. You asked what you will gain by using one of these prime lenses. Not much. Because of the wider apertures you will be able to blur the background more then you can with your present lens. If you were planning to do allot of portrait work that would be another story but you mentioned in your thread that you have other equipment you would like to buy. The lens you have now should work well for occasional portraits. You can blur the background by placing your subject farther away from it

[jazzfisher]

This is interesting, Sat night I got to try out my 2 new lenses as well as using my good old stand-by zoom.
My 2 new lenses are (Pentax) 50mm 1.4 & a 77 mm 1.8. My zoom is a 28-75 2.8. So I was just comparing how they do & don't look different. When I get home I will post one of each in my gallery, I'll let you know when they are up.

[jazzfisher]

I put 4 pics up in my gallery here. I put all the settings for each lens--All were taken without flash and are straight from the camera. (I will do some editing on them later) but thought you would want to see what they look like straight from the camera.
2 of them were taken with the zoom at various settings, 1 with the 50mm lens, & one with the 77 mm lens.
See what you think...

[GaryK]

Hey Sherry

Great shots as usual. The 50 looks very sharp or maybe somewhat more contrasty. Very hard to compare as the lighting is slightly different and of course you can't seem to get Peter to hold a pose while you change lenses.
Was he just up this way? I kept hearing his name mentioned on an ad for something on a smooth jazz station. As usual, I wasn't paying attention to the ad until I heard his name and then it was too late.

Oh ya, just got a $200+ estimate to get my zoom repaired.