Canon EF 50 Prime Ongoing Dire Need Confirmed

ahsanford

Particular Member
Aug 16, 2012
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hne said:
But... They've released the 40/2.8 pancake, TS-E 50/2.8L macro and soon follow that up with an EF-M 32/1.4 and you complain about a lack of normal lenses? A refresh of the 24-70, 70-200/4L IS on top of that and... Yeah. Like handling a hot potato.

I'm sorry, are any of those EF 50 primes? ::)

I appreciate Canon is pumping out a lot of new glass. They just aren't addressing the sucking belly wound of the industry's best lens portfolio.

- A
 
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Ah-Keong said:
Canon EF 50mm f/1,4L IS USM!
Beter if it's not an L. There needs to be a non-L 50mm other than the super cheap and cheesy STM f/1.8. The 35mm f/2 IS is a great lens and didn't need to be an L, no reason the 50mm f/1.4 IS couldn't also be a regular model. All adding the L would do is put the price up.
 
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wsmith96 said:
You may have to give in to the dark side (Sigma) to get you over the hump...
My Sigma 35mm has been rock solid despite the negative press. I assume the 50mm is the same kind of deal, if so it's definitely a good option. Maybe I got lucky, but I'm not sure why the 35mm and 50mm have such a bad rap. My 35 misses maybe one out of every thirty shots or so, which is about the same as my Canon lenses miss?

That Tamron 45mm seems really nice too. Then there was that new Tokina announced a few weeks ago. Lots of good manual focus options as well.

I want Canon to make a nice new middle-range 50mm, but I'm not too surprised they don't considering how many good options there are already. It's probably hard to make something which can compete with the Sigma and Tamron optically but without stepping on the toes of the 50mm f/1.2. Like, look how long it took for the 85mm f/1.4L IS to be made.
 
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Hector1970

CR Pro
Mar 22, 2012
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Ahsanfords wait goes on.
I am surprised Canon haven't brought out a new 50mm 1.2 Prime.
I'm in a minority here as I've been quite happy with all 3 Canon 50mm lens.
Currently I have the 50 1.2 and I enjoy it as a lens.
I don't have experience with the Sigma 50mm's so I've no idea if its better but I find the Canon 50 1.2L no obstacle to getting great photographs with it.
 
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jolyonralph

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Aug 25, 2015
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50mm - your grandfather's' focal length when cameras had a 50mm lens and that was it.

Anyway, 50mm f/1.2. Just eat packet noodles for a couple of months and save up for this instead of moaning about the lack of a 1.4 all the time :)

Or get something from an alternative purveyor of lenses such as sigma.
 
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Dec 17, 2013
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I like shooting at the 40 to 50 mm focal length.
I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect that there might be more people out there that might like a good 50 mm non-focus-by-wire fast lens, maybe with IS, by Canon. That being said, the Sigma Art 35 f/1.4 is a nice lens. The Sigma Art 50 is a huge lens, but no doubt quite good as well. There still seem to be the portrait photographers out there who don't want the clinically sharp approach and like the Canon 50 f/1.2L.
 
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slclick

EOS 3
Dec 17, 2013
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NancyP said:
I like shooting at the 40 to 50 mm focal length.
I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect that there might be more people out there that might like a good 50 mm non-focus-by-wire fast lens, maybe with IS, by Canon. That being said, the Sigma Art 35 f/1.4 is a nice lens. The Sigma Art 50 is a huge lens, but no doubt quite good as well. There still seem to be the portrait photographers out there who don't want the clinically sharp approach and like the Canon 50 f/1.2L.

I love shooting at 40...10mm at semi wide is a big difference to me.
 
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slclick said:
I know it's a case of preference and YMMV but I never understood the great desire for a 50. Wide, tele sure but what our normal vision is most close to? Journalism maybe....
As an event reporter, I find 50mm pretty useless. 35mm is what I go to. Most of my contemporary use either a 24-70, 16-35, 24-105, 35mm or 28mm. I don't think I know anyone who uses a 50mm as their main lens.

The thing Canon and other companies push 50mm for most these days seems to be as a beginner's first portrait lens which can then be an intermediate environmental portrait lens once someone has added an 85mm+ to their kit. I don't know if that's actually how the sales and market use work out but that is what most of the advertising seems to be built around.
 
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stevelee

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Jul 6, 2017
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lexaclarke said:
The thing Canon and other companies push 50mm for most these days seems to be as a beginner's first portrait lens which can then be an intermediate environmental portrait lens once someone has added an 85mm+ to their kit. I don't know if that's actually how the sales and market use work out but that is what most of the advertising seems to be built around.

I bought the 50mm f/1.4 to use as a portrait lens on my Rebel. It took me a while to figure out what lens to get. I knew I wanted to approximate the portrait features of an 85mm on FF, but didn't know what characteristic I was trying to emulate. Was there some magical quality to glass in that range that made portraits look good, or was it the camera-to-subject distance that I wanted to preserve? It turned out (as you guys know) to be the latter. So I got the 80mm "equivalent" for the Rebel, and had plenty of "bucket" (for you Hyacinth fans who mispronounce Japanese) wide open.

Since I bought my 6D2, I haven't used this lens at all. My 100mm f/2.8 macro works great for portraits right now, and I don't shoot very many, so getting an 85mm is somewhere down my list. I needed a recent picture of myself, so yesterday I put the 6D2 with the 100mm on a tripod, got out the cheap generic wireless trigger, flipped the screen around so I could compose the shots, and set a delay so I could concentrate on posing after I hit the button. The results were great, even given the subject matter. The lens is way too sharp, though, and picked up blemishes and such that I don't see when I look in the mirror. I didn't bother to look at some settings, and shot everything at f/7.1 in AV mode. I didn't need to blur the blank wall behind me anyway, and everything was in sharp focus.

Unless I want to shoot at f/1.4 or f/2, the reality is that anything I might want to shoot in the 50mm range on the 6D2 will be with the 24mm-105mm STM anyway.
 
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