If I have an 85mm lens for portraits, is a 50mm useful as well?

Question

I recently got my Canon EF 85mm f1.8, after lot of thought over if I should buy Canon EF 85mm f1.8 or Canon EF 50mm f1.4, I decided on 85mm so that I can shoot portraits of people even from a distance, though I might have difficulty in closeup shots where space might be less!

Now I am tempted to buy 50mm too, but of course don't have budget right now for f1.4. So here are questions in my mind:

1. Should I go for 50mm f1.8 now and be ok with that, or it's better to wait few months and at some point go for 50mm f1.4?

2. While distance between object and camera with 85mm f1.8 is a known factor, is there anything else which would limit for portraits with 85mm? Should I completely give up thoughts on 50mm, or rather buy it?

Asked by vishal.biyani

Answer

I have the 50mm 1.8 - it takes great pictures but it's not a pro lens - the auto focus is slow and have a tendency to hunt a bit, the manual focus ring is tiny and the build quality is ... well, don't expect much (but it is cheap and optically wonderful).

I've heard the 85mm 1.8 is a great lens and if I had it I would go for something around 30mm (Canon or 3rd party) for a second lens, not the 50mm.

The 50mm is like an 85mm on full frame, it's great for head shots and can take half body shots if you have the space, something in the 28-35 range is like 50mm full frame good for full body and small groups.

I have the 50mm 1.8 and the 18-135mm zoom, some time ago I checked the EXIF data on all my pictures and most of the pictures I take with the 18-135 (by a really large margin) are in the 30-35 range, remember, the "normal lens" for a Canon APS-C is around 30mm (if my math is right it's 27mm) not 50mm.

Answered by Nir

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