Lens advice

[jimmynaetroots]

Hi everyone.

I am just beginning to get into digital photography and I was after some advice. I have a Canon 400D body and a Tamron Aspherical [IF] MACRO AF 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di II LD Lens at the moment but I am struggling to capture decent portraits of the family, especially indoors...

I have done a bit of reading which suggests that the Canon 50mm f1.8 would be a good lens for family portraits. I cna pick one up for £80 new, which is appealing to me. Before I bit the bullet, do you think this will drastically increase my chances to capture sharp portrait images, or should I be looking at something else.

Thanks for your help!

Grahame

 

[jimmynaetroots]

Thanks for all the replies guys, just caught up with the thread now. I actually bought the 50mm lens this morning before seeing these. I have had a little play and so far, my images are coming out much sharper under the same conditions I was struggling with on the other lens.

I am impressed with the sharpness of this shot, even though I over did it with the shallow depth of field.

Still need to get my head around shooting on aperture priority mode. Making that leap from the auto mode is definitely daunting at first!

G.