New Lens

[Hill Country Hack]

I picked up a 50mm f1.8 and just started working with it. It should be fun and interesting to boot. Going to leave it on the camera for a bit and practice/explore the possibilities with the DOF and fixed focal length. Here is one practice shot. I know it is not the most interesting of subjects and I do have a small blow out in the 11 o'clock position. Just fiddling with the lens.



f1.8
1/500
ISO 100

[Dreamglade]

Firstly, it's a nice shot I do love my 50mm, it offers a level of sharpness that is very difficult to achieve with a kit, or my 55-200. And the ability to use it in darker conditions is also great (not so much indoors where I can use my speedlight, but still).

The novelty of f/1.8 wears off quite quickly though in everyday use. The so shallow depth of field increases risk of focus-error a lot (ok ok, you can argue against this with "duh, just take better shots") but for my purposes I like to use it at f/4-7 for portraits, and f/11 for street (in brighter days) or 7 in darker days. f/7 seems to be the sweetspot for this lens (from my few tests at least)

That being said, this lens wouldn't be my first choice for landscape photography.. You have an XSI, so a 1.6x crop factor making it the equivalent of a 75mm lens (compared to 35mm cameras or full frame cameras). Though that's just my opinion, I know many photographers who swear by medium - long telephoto lenses for landscape, it's just not my cup of tea, I like it wide

[martin8411]

how much the lens