The 50mm f1.8 as a portrait lens

On a crop sensor camera a 50mm lens gives a focal length of about 75mm for Nikon and 80mm for Canon. This gives a greater distance between camera and subject, and crops out part of the image from the lens, and therefore two things happen:
1.) Distortion from being too close with a 50mm lens is eliminated because you have to stand further back to get the same framing. This pushes it a little closer to being a standard "portrait" lens, especially on a Canon.
2.) The weakest part of the 50mm lens are the edges where fringing, aberrations etc. occur. Because the sensor is smaller these are effectively cropped out all together and we are left with only the best part of the image! Oh yeah!

At the ridiculously low price of a standard 50mm f1.8 lens this means that it makes perfect sense to invest a small bit of cash to get near "pro" results! To get the same quality from a zoom you will be spending a LOT more money, and it will be larger and heavier to boot.

More "pros" than will care to admit it carry the nifty fifty in their bags, just ask them for a peek in their bags, it will be there somewhere. Ask Chase Jarvis, he has one in his bag too.

And if you like the 50mm focal length because that was your favourite back when you still used a film camera (remember film?) then consider the Nikkor 35mm f1.8 for Nikon, and I hear good things about the Sigma 30mm f1.4 for most brands of crop sensor cameras. These two are good for environmental portraits and small group shots, giving superb performance for a low cost, although I think the Sigma might not be as cheap as the Nikkor.

So if you have examples of portraits with the "nifty fifty" then please post a link to them below for the benefit of us all!