Inspired by various posts on the interweb about 50mm lenses (including this one), my parents (with some helpful suggestions) bought me a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens to use with my Canon 450D body. I haven’t experimented too much with it yet but two things have struck me about having such a fast lens and a wide (1.8) aperture:

• Firstly I can take photos with remarkable detail in very little light; pushing the ISO up to 1600 results in very little noise.
• Secondly, I can take some great nightime shots without the use of a tripod using faster shutter speeds with the larger aperture.

As VothPhoto writes:

There is a difference of approximately 3.5 stops between f/1.8, the typical maximum aperture for an entry-level 50mm lens, and f/5.6, the typical maximum aperture at the portrait end of a “consumer” zoom. This is a huge difference in practice. Lighting that would require a difficult shutter speed of 1/8 second at f/5.6 would permit easy hand-held photography at 1/90 at f/1.8.

I’m looking forward to experimenting some more and also trying some portrait photography.