I read an article at lunch time that said how a 50mm prime lens could be your new best friend. I have been using Gale’s 28-135mm lens, which I love. But it does have the draw back that it can only go to f5.6. But why would I want to limit myself to a fixed focal lens when I can currently zoom in and out to my hearts content? Not to mention it has an image stabilizer.
There’s a British Comedy where a character was talking about not having a zoom lens.
“How do you bring distant objects into sharp focus?”
“Just move your head closer to the object.”
A good point, and the added bonus of a fixed lens is a wider aperture. So I’m seriously thinking about a 50mm lens. AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, Gale HAS a f1.4 50mm Lens that she says I can borrow. A wider aperture gives you a shallower depth of field, which can also be pretty handy. Since I just made a cup of coffee, I have my subject ready and waiting.
Here’s a shot with my (Gale’s) trusty 28-135mm. at around 60mm 1/10sec and ISO 100. Not amazingly in focus and at f4.5 not a very shallow depth of field. (Click on the image for a full size version). I probably could have zoomed in to 135mm and got less depth of field, but I wanted a similar comparison.
Here’s one with the 50mm f1.4 lens. Taken at 1/25sec still ISO 100 and it did have a circular polarizer too, hence the reduced glare. But ignore that.
Neither image had an unsharp mask run on them, which I normally do, but I did correct the colors since I took both shots in RAW.
In both cases I focused on the front lip of the mug and you can see how much shallower the DOF field is with the 50mm and how much sharper the sharp bits are. AND just look at the bokeh (the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light), how pretty are they? (Again click on the image for a full size) You can see how clear it is.
I’m going to use the lens for a month. My New Best Friend? Ask me in June.