f1.4 maximum aperture
Reviews (10)
Great lens, but cheaper elsewhere...
This is by far a great prime lens for folks starting out.With a prime you can focus on the rest of the key elements to photography (namely lighting and focus) instead of worrying about cropping.With a film SLR, this lens shoots what the human eyes can see (no wide angle nor tele zoom) plus the bokah is really good on this one (bokah is the out-of-focus quality, great for all kinds of photos).
The negative side is that even at new, the prices here are way more than you need to pay.One could buy one of these lens for under $300 new from more reputable online stores.
Still Waiting
This lens has received excellent reviews so I won't repeat what others have already stated.I ordered this lens on March 20 with a shipping estimate of "usually within 24hrs".I just received an updated ship date range of May 5th - May 15th.If you are in a hurry for this lens it might be best to look elsewhere.
Why spend more?
With an f1.8 lens available at a third of the price, 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 clarity of the glass is reportedly quite comparable, and 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 yet still get geniune clarity in your shots - you wouldn't be wasting your time.(In fact, it would generally surpass zoom lenses in the price range of the f1.4 - prime lenses are great "bang for the buck," quality-wise.)
So why would the f1.4 be among Canon's most all-time popular lenses?"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:a feature that lets your camera autofocus, with the convenience of further tweaking by hand without flipping a switch.The f1.8 instead requires switching back and forth between auto and manual focus.
"Headroom":on one hand, 1.4 to 1.8 might not seem like much of a difference, and both lenses are (understandably) "soft" wide open.But the 1.4 "gets up to speed" more quickly ("sharp enough" by f2.0, "very sharp" by f2.8, and "unreal sharp" by f4), where the 1.8's probably got to stop down more to the f4-5.6 range for its best results.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, I shoot performers in dim clubs, and though the edges are fuzzy at f1.4, there's an "illusion of clarity" created by the blurred background that ends up delivering some very nice results, espec. if it's going to be resized for the web.)
"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 incomparably "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, for some people, turns out too good to pass up, 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.
(ps - 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 though, if what you really need is one decent lens to do as many different things as possible, though none of them as well.)
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May need to clean the sensor often
Hope I got a bad copy...
