Heya!

As the price of lenses has grown by at least 1/3 in the UK, im going to wait before an L series lens purchase. Instead i've found two options im pretty interested in, any advice or recommendations are much appreciated.

The two lenses are the Canon 50mm 1.4 and the 85mm 1.8. They are both around the same price, the latter being slightly more expensive. They both have a USM and both have around a 9/10 on most review sites.


Which lens would you buy and why?

I currently only have a Canon EOS 450D with kit lens and am interested in general shooting with some action shooting.



Thanx!

Well it depends what focal lenght you need. Imo there isnt much of a difference in optical quality. Personally i would take them both for different situations, but im not using 1.6 crop camera..

This post was edited by Antichrist- on Mar 22 2009 10:04am

oh! the feedback from this topic could help me too Once I get "good" enough I'm going to be looking at buying a similar prime

There isnt much of a difference on the lenses, it just depends what focal lenght you need allso, and ur the only one who can know that

loads of people say build quality is better on the 85 :S

what would you use 50 and 85 for on a cropped body?



thanx for fast advice mate

This post was edited by doyleo on Mar 22 2009 10:11am

portraits mostly, 85mm is good on concerts and stuff like that(if you cant shoot from front row, but isnt good from too long away) and 50mm is usable for some type of all around low light shooting allso, but its still bit too tight for most of the things on crop body. Imo the build quality doesent mean that much on these, since theyr both ok quality and not L enyways

but id find that either would be a big improvment from the kit lens?

and basically your saying is they are both similar, but buy the one with the focal length i perfer?

This post was edited by doyleo on Mar 22 2009 10:16am

both are waaay better than the kit lens. Yes both are quite similar on image quality(both great, especially for the price). that 50mm offers f-1.4, but its only a 2/3rd stops faster than 1.8, so that doesent make that much difference, so just pick the focal lenght you need.

This post was edited by Antichrist- on Mar 22 2009 10:22am

im pushed towards the 85mm, because i love shooting outdoors - i think i'll buy it new because it seems to hold its value really well second hand.


Thanx a lot for your help mate!

Np

i corrected that 1.4 is 2/3rd stops faster than the 1.8, not 1/3rd. But still it isnt that much of a difference that you should use some focal lenght you dont prefer using. And for the dof matter i think they both get pretty much the same dof wide open since 85mm has longer focal lenght