Thread: Flickr: Discussing 50mm f/1.8 Sharpness issue in Canon DSLR User Group

+1 also for the tripod as well. Or, crank up your ISO.

MLU helps to some degree, but that's a long enough exposure that you also have to: use a cable release, use a well-dampened tripod, and have lots of patience. Achieving critical focus is also helpful, and a lens like this has paper-thin depth of field when used wide open...

MLU... Miller Lite Ultra? LOL

I agree with everyone else, I am not sure it is the lens. I see several issues with it after pulling the EXIF data that I would have done differently. I would recommend a couple of subtle changes, most of which have already been mentioned. The only one not mentioned that I would have done differently is the focal point. After increasing everything else (ISO and shutter speed) I would switch the focal point from the Bud Light logo on the main...

"I sold mine because it was too soft at 1.8 I got a tamron 28-75 2.8, and it's acceptably sharp wide open." So, how sharp is the Tamron at f/1.8? Or, is the Tamron at 2.8 as sharp as the Nifty Fifty at f/2.8? My copy of the fifty is very sharp at f/2.8.

Shutter speed 1/10sec... Is this on a tripod? If not that's way too slow of a shutter speed. And of course a lens is not going to be at its sharpest wide open.

If you expect good sharpness at f1.8 from any other lens than the 200 mm f1.8L you have unreasonable expectations. You can take photos with the lens that look pretty sharp if you can compare the almost sharp in focus parts with the seriously soft out of focus parts. But the actual sharpness of almost all lenses at f1.8 is somewhere between mediocre and really bad. The 50 f1.8 gets decent at f2.8 and nearly perfect at f4. From f4 to f8 there...

I got rid of mine and bought the 1.4 - different class, Mike

Let me start drinking the next beer and try that...

Looks like the half empty beer bottles has something to do with this... With such a narrow DOF wide open it's sometimes hard to get it focused on the spot that you want, or as joe mentioned, 1/10 is pretty slow.