Good (cheap) 50 to 100mm Canon lens

[Mr niall]

Hello there

Can anyone recommend a good cheapish fixed lens with a standard Canon fit in the 50-100mm range? I've noticed there seems to be a fair few nifty fifties out there but I'm not seeing a huge amount of info on edge sharpness or distortion that seems to be the bane of my life with my otherwise excellent 18-55 kit lens. 

Ideally I'd like to be hitting around f3 or lower too if I can! 

Thanks all! 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Mr niall

[Grierson]

The 50mm ‘nifty fifty’ will not spots of the kit lens. Absolutely no comparison and well worth the (relatively) small outlay. Pin sharp across the board.

 

[happy-kat]

After reading a detailed review with images of same target across the f stop range between the nifty fifty and pancake I bought the 40mm pancake lens which also suits me for it's size.

[toxic]

the 50 is great - in daytime photography its as sharp as you will get but in astrophotography you need to sop down to F5.4-for nearly sharp to-F7.1 for realy sharp stars in the corners.

example single 120 sec at F7.1 canon 200D with 50mm on SA no processing just converted to jpeg for posting.

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by toxic
spelling

[Mr niall]

36 minutes ago, toxic said:

the 50 is great - in daytime photography its as sharp as you will get but in astrophotography you need to sop down to F5.4-for nearly sharp to-F7.1 for realy sharp stars in the corners.

example single 120 sec at F7.1 canon 200D with 50mm on SA no processing just converted to jpeg for posting.

 

wow those are some sharp edges. Shame you have to go down to f7 though. Although I guess at £80 its not fair to complain.

[Alien 13]

It depends what you mean by good and cheap, a used Sigma 100mm macro lens is very good at astro as it the excellent Canon 70-200 f/4 L but they are not exactly cheap but as good as anything else in the range.......I paid £220 for my L lens and even came with a lens collar for tripod mounting.

Alan

P.S. the Canon 70-200 can be used wide open throughout its range for astro i.e. f/4

Edited July 16, 2019 by Alien 13

[Mr niall]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

After reading a detailed review with images of same target across the f stop range between the nifty fifty and pancake I bought the 40mm pancake lens which also suits me for it's size.

You wouldn't happen to remember what the review was called would you (I must admit I'm a real sucker for pancake lenses. I used to have the M-fit pancake on my old eos M1. What a lens...)

[Macavity]

I did TRY to TEST a Pancake 24mm f/2.8 versus an EF 50mm STM f/1.8 😛
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-EF-1-8-STM-Lens/dp/B00XKSBMQA
I used a Test Card on screen (not at infinity!) and scaled images to match...

The left hand image shows Centre performance of the lens.... the right hand image shows Edge performance!

Pancake 24 at f/2.8

The following suggests quantitatively the EF 50 STM has to be stopped down to f/4.0 (or more) to match the Pancake f/2.8 ????

EF 50 STM at f/1.8

EF 50 STM at f/2.8

EF 50 STM at f/4


ASIDE: The last image had some *camera shake* rather than astigmatism or whatever! lol 🤔

Does the above really MEAN anything? Who knows?!? lol! I TAKE it to mean that Canon lens
performance scales with price?!?!? The 40mm Pancake is said to be better than a 24mm too?

BUT throwing caution to the wind, I tried a 10x stack of 2min images at f/2.8 with EF STM 50!
I used dark subtraction,  IRIS Gradient removal and image enhancement with GIMP levels...

My conclusion is the EF50 STM was "Good enough" for me!
The (more expensive) Pancake 40mm may have be better?
But I decided to stick with the Pancake 24 & EF50 STM f/1.8. 😺

 

Canon 100D + EF50 STM f/2.8  ISO1600 + Baader UHC 10x2min (Darks, IRIS Flattened. GIMP Levels etc.):



[removed word] Grana Salis as they say!

Edited July 16, 2019 by Macavity

[happy-kat]

It was this review

Taken using my barn door, 121 second image on having a quick scoot around for something to share. I use it stopped down to f4 for astro use. I always end up cropping stacked images due to not having all the frame line up so total edge to edge is not really used and it is on a A-PSC camera. I picked up a 24mm pancake new for half price and the 40mm is a good price second hand. If I only wanted new then the nifty fifty is quite a bit cheaper.

[Mr niall]

1 hour ago, Macavity said:

I did TRY to TEST a Pancake 24mm f/2.8 versus an EF 50mm STM f/1.8 😛
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-EF-1-8-STM-Lens/dp/B00XKSBMQA
I used a Test Card on screen (not at infinity!) and scaled images to match...

The left hand image shows Centre performance of the lens.... the right hand image shows Edge performance!

Pancake 24 at f/2.8

The following suggests quantitatively the EF 50 STM has to be stopped down to f/4.0 (or more) to match the Pancake f/2.8 ????

EF 50 STM at f/1.8

EF 50 STM at f/2.8

EF 50 STM at f/4


ASIDE: The last image had some *camera shake* rather than astigmatism or whatever! lol 🤔

Does the above really MEAN anything? Who knows?!? lol! I TAKE it to mean that Canon lens
performance scales with price?!?!? The 40mm Pancake is said to be better than a 24mm too?

BUT throwing caution to the wind, I tried a 10x stack of 2min images at f/2.8 with EF STM 50!
I used dark subtraction,  IRIS Gradient removal and image enhancement with GIMP 

[removed word] Grana Salis as they say!

wow that is super useful - can see a massive difference between f1.8 and f2.8, that would probably be good enough for me (I'm nowhere near competent enough to approach the limits of equipment under even moderately normal use so can't see that being a limiting factor!)

[alacant]

5 hours ago, Mr niall said:

50-100mm range?

Hi. How about a vintage Takumar 55mm or 100mm? Or both? Get the latter soon before it becomes like the 85mm; collectable. With prices to match;)

Cheers and HTH.

 

[Mr niall]

Thanks all - following advice I've managed to picked up a new Canon EF 50mm (the newer STM version) for £89. I'll be quite honest and say the price was the deciding factor over the 40mm which does look lovely but at £89 that represents pretty brill value for money.

If I can get some half decent subs from this then the longer term plan is to pick up a Samyang 135mm but that is a significant jump in budget and focal length so the 50 will doubtless keep me going for a while!

Will report back with findings.

[jgs001]

Enjoy the Nifty, it's a craking little lens, I found f/4 was needed to get a reasonably good result. I'd suggest looking at a macro lens (make sure it's a true macro, and not a macro labelled zoom) for Astro, given the price of the Samyang. Macro lenses are designed to be optically flat and, thus can be used wide open without issue... I have a used Sigma 150, and it's a belter. The canon 100mm macro can be had for £120 for example

[Alien 13]

1 hour ago, Mr niall said:

Thanks all - following advice I've managed to picked up a new Canon EF 50mm (the newer STM version) for £89. I'll be quite honest and say the price was the deciding factor over the 40mm which does look lovely but at £89 that represents pretty brill value for money.

If I can get some half decent subs from this then the longer term plan is to pick up a Samyang 135mm but that is a significant jump in budget and focal length so the 50 will doubtless keep me going for a while!

Will report back with findings.

The 50mm STM is a lovely lens and well built too, it also has a nice focus action. I have used mine at f2.8 without issues but you do need to play around with focus and try to get it spot on at a point away from the center (this helps with any distortion in the corners).

Alan

[Ags]

I've been happy with the Nifty at f1.8... It is useful for static shots where no tracking is possible. Because there's no tracking, you have to crop the borders anyway. But my standards may not be as high as those of others!

[Chris]

On 16/07/2019 at 16:59, Mr niall said:

Hello there

Can anyone recommend a good cheapish fixed lens with a standard Canon fit in the 50-100mm range? I've noticed there seems to be a fair few nifty fifties out there but I'm not seeing a huge amount of info on edge sharpness or distortion that seems to be the bane of my life with my otherwise excellent 18-55 kit lens. 

Ideally I'd like to be hitting around f3 or lower too if I can! 

Thanks all! 

Hiya, I have an edge sharpness demo video for the Nift fifty if you want to take a look  

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by Lockie

[happy-kat]

I stop down more because of bright star bloat then corner sharpness.

[Mr niall]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

I stop down more because of bright star bloat then corner sharpness.

Yeah… do you know that never occurred to me until I started this thread! I've always shot wide open and wondered why I'm getting such bloated stars with my 75-300. I always assumed it was either a focussing issue or a tracking issue (which it probably was as well) and I know the 75-300 isn't, objectively speaking, a brilliant lens that has its own issues; but this thread has really opened my eyes as to the importance of using a more conservative f stop. I love this place! 👍👍

Edited July 18, 2019 by Mr niall

[Ags]

This depends on how you are using the picture. If you are pixel peeping then star bloat can be really bothersome, but if the image is being displayed at 1080p or smaller it may not be such an issue. Yes F8 might give you perfect stars, but you will also lose a lot of light that will affect SNR and of course capture much less faint fuzzy stuff. If you are going to shoot at F8, you may as well save the money and just use a kit lens.

[alacant]

On 16/07/2019 at 17:59, Mr niall said:

a fair few nifty fifties

Hi

To what does nifty fifties refer?

TIA

[jgs001]

The nifty fifty is the cheap Canon EF 50 mm prime lens. It's cheap, lightweight, and yet, has amazingly good optics with a fast f/1.8. Brand new is £99.

 

https://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/Canon/Canon-EF-lenses/Canon-EF-50mm-f1.8-STM-Lens

[Mr niall]

52 minutes ago, Ags said:

If you are going to shoot at F8, you may as well save the money and just use a kit lens.

Yes good point - but I was hoping to hit something in the f2.5 to f3 range which it looks like is easily achievable. My kit lens at 55mm is 5.6 I think, so yes trying to significantly improve on that as an attempt to mitigate my rather slap dash and incompetent attempts to polar align and track! 🤪

[happy-kat]

I use a red dot finder mounted in the flash hot shoe for alignment