Please help, I'm in the market for a new lens :)

[BellaD]

My 1st post, I am lov-ing this site!!! Thanks to everyone who contributes their wealth of knowledge! Its not easy in the beginning

I have been looking at adding to my lens collection, I have the basic kit lenses...as you see in my siggy

I am looking at either the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 OR the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4. I want to take more crisper/shaprer eye appealing pictures. Can one of these do that for me?

TIA

[lputman]

Either of them will work well. You might be limited with taking pictures indoors where you might not have enough room for the 85.

[inkista]

As Lori says, both of those are great lenses. So just figure out which lens you use more for taking portraits; your kit lens or your 75-300? If it's the kit, then go for the 50/1.4, if it's the 75-300, then the 85/1.8 is probably a better choice.

If you want to be more specific, though, you can also analyze all the pictures you've taken with your current gear with something like FocalPlot and see what focal lengths you tend to "sit" at. It may turn out that what you really want is a 28/1.8, 35/2, 100/2, or 135/2.8 soft focus--all those lenses cost roughly around the same as the 50/1.4 and 85/1.8.

My usual recommendation, though, is to just blow a little bit of money on the 50/1.8 II. Simply because some folks find out that shooting with a prime is not to their taste. Not being able to zoom can be a PITA for some kinds of shooting, and the finicky attention you have to pay to focusing if you're shooting at very wide apertures with a thin depth of field isn't necessarily what some shooters love. There's a reason that zoom lenses are so popular. The 50/1.8 is about $100. It's the best bang-for-the-buck bargain in the Canon lineup, and its optical quality is going to beat both your 18-55 and 75-300. If you find you don't like it, you can sell it, keep it as a trashable travel lens, or use it as a poor man's macro toy by reversing it.

I will also say that getting "sharper/crisper" and more "eye appealing" pics may have nothing at all to do with the lens. A lot of beginners make the mistake of assuming that a better lens will get them better pictures, when basic technique may be at fault. The main reason to go for a fast prime like the 50/1.4 or 85/1.8 is actually the wider maximum aperture, not necessarily the better optical performance. Sharpness ain't everything.

So, just a few words: 'eye appeal' is typically more about composition than about equipment. So, two books that may or may not help you out here would be Bryan Peterson's Learning to See Creatively and Michael Freeman's The Photographer's Eye.

Sharpness and crispness have a bunch of factors involved. The main ones being:

1. Do you know how to hold your camera properly?
   
   
2. Is your shutter speed fast enough to eliminate camera shake (i.e., 1/focal_length rule. If you're shooting @300mm, your shutter speed should be at 1/300s or faster with an unstabilized lens).
   
   
3. Are you sure the camera focused where you think it focused? (i.e., do you know how to use your AF points? How to focus and recompose? What the different AF modes do? How to aim for a high-contrast target?)
   
   
4. Is your shutter speed fast enough to eliminate subject blur?
   
   
5. Are you shooting wide open? Or have you stopped down to the lens's sweet spot? (both the 18-55 and 75-300 tend to perform better if stopped down to f/8.)
   
   
6. Are you post-processing your images? Most of the gorgeous photos you see are not only taken by photographers who've mastered technique, equipment, and composition, but who also own Photoshop and know how to use it.

If you know you're doing all of that correctly, then it may be time to look at new equipment. Otherwise, a new lens isn't really gonna fix a dang thing. And one more word: it may not be a new lens you need. A tripod or a flash or a cable release; or a book, mentor, or class may actually be a better way to accomplish a specific photographic goal.

[BellaD]

Lori, thanks for the advice.

inkista, wow thanks so much for the detailed reply. Thats amazing, I have alot to think about. Lots to read too. Very good advice, thats for sure.