Help!

[photobyhailey]

I am a broke college student dabbling in photography. I would really love to make a career out of it, but I have a LOT to learn. I have an important question. I REALLY want to create lifestyle portraits in a beautiful way. I want to be able to blur my backgroup by using an f/1.8 ish. I don't know if my canon rebel can be set to that. Can it?

Also, if I buy a new lens, what would be the best way to achieve the blurred background I want ON A BUDGET? A 55mm with a f/1.8 or a lens with a longer focal length such as the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM?

PLEASE HELP! I'm shooting in a month and I need to figure it out soon!

Thanks so much! xoxo Hailey

[photobyhailey]

Canon EOS Rebel XS 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II Lens

[Doug Pardee]

The usual cheap solution is the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. I don't know how well your XS will autofocus with that lens, though; the AF system is designed for f/4 or slower lenses. The autofocus might not have the accuracy necessary for narrow depth of field.

[inkista]

Doug, at that budget, I don't think it's really an issue. The XS has the same AF system in it that the XT did, and I used a 50/1.8 II and got decent results:



Your camera can be set to whatever the lens allows. Each lens is described by its focal length(s) and maximum aperture(s).

The 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens that the XS comes with has a focal length range of 18mm to 55mm, and @18mm (the widest angle the lens does), its max. aperture is f/3.5, and @55mm, its max. aperture is f/5.6. So, you cannot do f/1.8 with that lens. You would need a lens that has a max. aperture of f/1.8 or larger (smaller f-number).

A telephoto zoom lens will also give you a shallow DoF, but will require far more light, a faster shutter speed to eliminate camera shake blur, and will force you to work from farther away from your subject. A good portrait generally requires some sort of interaction between you and your subject. Harder to do that from farther away.

The other "portrait" lens that a lot of newbies favor is the EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, but it's substantially more expensive than the EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by inkista

The XS has the same AF system in it that the XT did, and I used a 50/1.8 II and got decent results

Yeah, but a lot of people didn't. The "can't get proper autofocus with the 50mm f/1.8" complaint was fairly common with XT/350D users, because that model lacks the high-precision center AF point that the later models (except the XS) have. There was a disturbing "fix" involving adjusting the angle of the sub-mirror that was wide-spread during the hey-day of the XT/350D — those of us who knew better tried to explain to people that they were screwing up their camera's AF system by doing it, but I don't think many people listened.

Quality of results depends on the specific camera and lens. If they're "well calibrated", it works great. If they're near the borderline, using f/1.8 can give autofocus problems. Unfortunately, paying Canon to calibrate a 50mm f/1.8 lens is more expensive than just buying a few more copies of the lens and seeing which one works best on your camera!

All of that said: you and I are talking about the XT/350D, and I only assume that the XS will have the same problems. It's possible that the AF system on the XS was calibrated to tighter tolerances.