jimmya Loc: Phoenix

I'm a Canon guy and own one of their 50's f/1.8 and have never had such a problem.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

You have in lens motor.
This Canon system is much faster than the screw.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

As others have said, the lens has little to do with focusing speed, unless it is an older lens with a built-in motor or you have your camera settings incorrect. I own, and use a 50mm for basketball and get some great results. Mine is the G 1.4 version. PRACTICE, PRACTICE and PRACTICE some more! Best of luck.

forjava Loc: Half Moon Bay, CA

Kudos. Never have I seen "fast" explained so clearly: "A fast lens ... means it's aperture opens wide enough to allow a faster shutter speed."

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

This is not a Canon vs Nikon issue ... fool. ( I really mean - ignorant).

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Drop the name calling and just drop it.

Bull-Dozer Loc: Vermont

When I started using Nikon D800's i initially bought two bodies and two 1.4 lens. These Nikons are used to photograph historic newspaper pages for "online hosting". They are normally set to shoot at F/10 to improve the depth of field. I was sad to see unexceptionable "lateral color" the 1.4 lens had, which made the color images of the text surrounded with the usual red/blue fringes of this optical defect. For sport shooting this may not be such a big problem but it was for my application.
I bought two 1.8 lens and the problem did'nt go completely away but almost did. These lens are manually focused as they are on a production camera stand. Both types of lens shot immediately after the button was pressed.

I have since found that the raw images "color" can be fixed using "Raw Therapee 4.2.510" You would think the Nikon raw conversion would take care of the problem but I was unable to using it.

I have stopped using Adobe PS which with the right amount of scripting could fix this, because i can no longer purchase a copy only "rent" which does not work well in automated production systems for various reasons.

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

Sorry to hear that your purchases did not live up to your expectations. If I am understanding you correctly, you are photographing old newspaper pages to reproduce online? If so, and you are essentially photographing a flat image, is it necessary to go to f10 to achieve the required DOF? I am not doubting you, I truly do not know.

That being said, I only brought up the f-stop question in an attempt to figure out why the OP was having difficulty achieving focus, and thought maybe he was using an aperture at which his camera could not autofocus.

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

Sorry, I could have used worse. Each week someone tries to take a simple question and make it a Canon vs Nikon confrontation . It needs to be addressed, and imbeciles identified. You can ignore it, I will not. Both manufacturers excel at producing quality lenses and cameras. Our human race can't do the same.

Bull-Dozer Loc: Vermont

The newspapers filmed are usually "bound" into volumes. Because of that the distance from lens to paper changes some as you progress through the volume. F/10 gives me enough depth of field to not have to constantly refocus as this happens. Auto focus does not work well as there are blank pages and other featureless pages that do not contain enough detail to work consistantly.

On to the Canon vs Nikon. I always purchase the most appropriate equipment for the task. Some times that is Nikon some times that is Canon.Not wanting to start a fight but. I use both. Meaning I do production on various stations using Canon 1Ds, 5D mk II, and 5Ds bodies as well as the Nikon D800's. Using both fixed and variable FL lens. From personal experience the Nikon's require more effort to use in this type of production. Producing more than a million images a month i have some experience in this area.

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

One million per month? WTF? That's over 23 per minute, going 24/7.

Bull-Dozer Loc: Vermont

I have numerous filming stations across the US in locations where the exotic material is (papers over 100 years old). The company I work for produces most of the historical newspaper content viable on the web for many publishers you would know. Historically the content would of been produced as Microfilm than scanned on a microfilm scanner. But as digital camera resolution improves more and more is direct to digital. Some of my cameras are still Microfilm cameras and produced more than 60 years ago by Bell and Howell. I use equipment what best fits the task.

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

Glad to hear it's not a one man operation!

Bull-Dozer Loc: Vermont

LOL I'm just the engineer.

btbg

If you are shooting at f4 and 500th why on earth are you using the 50 1.8 instead of your 70-200 or 24-70?

50mm isn't big enough for shooting high school basketball. I'm shooting on a D300 f2.8 at 250th and iso 1,600 because any faster iso has too much noise. That means that you have plenty of light at iso 6,400 so i don't understand why you would go away from the lenses that are the industry standard for what you are shooting.

I use an 80-200 for work and when shooting on the baseline I usually have it zoomed to about 120mm. When shooting from other angles I zoom in more. The big idea on sports photos is to fill the frame, hard to do with a 50mm.