Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II lens

[Melanie2010]

A friend of mine is going to let me have a canon lens that she has.

I have heard this is a great lens for portraits, but was wondering what other types of photography it would be good for.....Would I be able to photograph hummingbirds and get close up shots of birds with it?

I am not familiar with different types of lenses yet.

Thanks!!
Mel

[RolandAA]

That's a great general purpose lens and should be extremely sharp once closed down a couple stops. Just get out there and play with it for a while and you'll find lots of things it's good for. Unfortunately I think you'll find 50mm is pretty short for birds unless they trust you enough to get very close to them.

[Gonzo13]

Like Roland said it's a great general purpose lens. Since getting mine in December I have had it on my camera most of the time. It's great for indoor shots because of it's low light capabilities. For the birds I think that it could be used if you set up the camera with a movement trigger on it. With a little searching I found an article about it. Photographing Wildlife at Night with a Digital Camera by Jack Smith it is about night photography but it might have some useful info about the trigger used. Curiously what camera are you going to be using this with? I have heard that 50mm can distort faces on full frame cameras. I don't have one personally so I can't say for sure.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Melanie2010

A friend of mine is going to let me have a canon lens that she has.

I have heard this is a great lens for portraits, but was wondering what other types of photography it would be good for.....Would I be able to photograph hummingbirds and get close up shots of birds with it?

Probably not, unless you have really fearless birds that don't care about people being close by or a feeder set up next to a window. Chances are good that the only two kinds of birds you're likely to be able to shoot with it are rock pigeons and seagulls.

It also won't be good for macro photography without adding something like extension tubes. For good close-up photography, you really do want a macro lens.

What the 50/1.8 II is good for, aside from portraits, is available light photography (i.e., shooting indoors without a flash). Because the maximum aperture is so wide, you can gather more light more quickly, so in some situations where other lenses would be hopelessly motion-blurred, you can get a shutter speed high enough to freeze the action.

It's also terrific as a travel lens. It's small, light, and cheap/trashable, so if you lose it, or it gets stolen/broken, it's not a heartbreaker, like, say, a $1600 L lens would be.

The small size also makes it stealthy enough for street shooting, and stopped down, it's quite sharp, so you can shoot landscapes with it, too. You may have to do some pano stitching to cover a larger scene, but a 50mm f/1.8 prime used to be the default kit lens back in pre-zoom film days.

The only big drawback to the 50mm on a digital camera is that the crop factor gives you a narrower field of view than it does on a full-frame, so sometimes you may have to step back to get the framing you want. However, the one "magic" thing a 50mm lens does that no other focal length can, is that its magnification matches that of the human eye. If you open both eyes while shooting, the views will match. So, composing with a 50mm is actually easier than with other lenses, where you may have to "translate" for focal length.

To get more of a handle on what lens features mean in practical shooting terms, I recommend this lens primer.

[Melanie2010]

Thanks everyone!
I have a Canon Xsi.

What kind of lens would you recommend for photographing birds in my backyard?

Thanks for all of the help!!
Melanie

[BCampbell]

Originally Posted by inkista

However, the one "magic" thing a 50mm lens does that no other focal length can, is that its magnification matches that of the human eye. If you open both eyes while shooting, the views will match. So, composing with a 50mm is actually easier than with other lenses, where you may have to "translate" for focal length.

Hey, so this is basically true for full frame, but not so much for the cropped sensors. The "normal" focal length is generally equivalent to the diagonal of the sensing medium -- so, for 35mm film and full frame sensors at 36x24mm, this is 43mm. There aren't many lenses in that range so 50mm is generally accepted as "normal". Canon's cropped sensor, however, has a roughly 27mm diagonal, so 28mm is roughly "normal".

[inkista]

What kind of lens would you recommend for photographing birds in my backyard?

A telephoto zoom is probably the most commonly used lens for this kind of shooting. A 70-200 f/4L USM or a 70-300 IS USM are probably the most popular. When I go bird shooting, I use an EF 400mm f/5.6L USM, but I'm chasing raptors around back canyons.

Originally Posted by BCampbell

Hey, so this is basically true for full frame, but not so much for the cropped sensors. ...

You misread what I wrote: I never said that 50 was "normal" on a crop body. I simply said that the magnification of a 50mm matches that of the unaided eye. Put a 28mm lens onto a crop body, have both eyes open, and the views you get from both eyes DO NOT match. Put a 50mm onto the crop body, have both eyes open, and the views DO match. A 28mm lens on a crop body does NOT match what the unaided eye sees.

Just try it. You'll see what I mean. I'm not talking about field of view. This is all part of the "your sensor size doesn't actually change your focal length" thing.

[BCampbell]

Originally Posted by inkista

You misread what I wrote: I never said that 50 was "normal" on a crop body. I simply said that the magnification of a 50mm matches that of the unaided eye. Put a 28mm lens onto a crop body, have both eyes open, and the views you get from both eyes DO NOT match. Put a 50mm onto the crop body, have both eyes open, and the views DO match.

Hm, okay I guess I'm misinterpreting you then, because when you say "the views do/don't match" it really sounds like you're talking about field of view. Sounds like you're talking about optical power, specifically. No worries, then.

My only concern is that because 35mm film was the standard for such a long time, and 50mm lenses did have a very "normal" power and field of view, that focal length became a basic starting point. People starting on cropped sensors now tend to get a little frustrated/confused when they mount the so-called "normal" 50mm and find it a bit restrictive because it brings them closer to the subject than expected. Again, no worries.

[SamFTracey]

I've had this lens for a couple of months now (my first experience with primes) and LOVE it. It's rarely left my camera. As others have said, it's great for shooting inside with available light (broken me of my flash habit ), and pictures taken outside with it are simply amazing. As for shooting hummingbirds, it does help if the birds are used to you, or if you have the patience to stand out there for a while close enough to the feeder, but it is definitely possible to use it for that!

[inkista]

Originally Posted by BCampbell

Sounds like you're talking about optical power, specifically. No worries, then.

Yup. Cool, that's the vocab I needed. I know magnification/perspective weren't quite what I was after, but they're the closest words I had.

And yeah, I get what you're saying about 50mm possibly framing too tightly on ASP-C to be as general purpose a focal length as it was on film. The thing is that you can't get both power and FoV that are normal on a crop body in a single lens.