35mm f/1.8 on its way

[bigben6]

Oops, how did that happen...... but i am stoked.... any insight on how best to use it, my fiurst prime so i am sure there will be a learning curve.

[IABoomer]

Take your 18-105, set it to 35mm and use it like that. It'll give you a feel for how things will be framed. Once you get the fast prime, open it up pretty wide, get in close to some things and let the background turn to butter.

P.S., when you put the lens hood on, make sure you twist it until it clicks. I made that mistake early on and almost lost my hood.

[Shokinen]

I would recommend you use a specific focus point when you are using large apertures (small f/numbers). You can half-press the shutter button to lock the focus then re-frame your picture. You need to get close (i.e. portrait, flowers, etc) with the 35mm to fill your frame but getting closer means lens forgiveness due to the very shallow depth of field.

It's easy to accidently focus on the nose and have the eyes out of focus.

[CarissaLyn]

I just got that lens for Christmas for my D5000. It's my first prime lens as well. It takes some getting used to, having to move yourself instead of zooming, but I'm really enjoying figuring it out!

[bigben6]

IT's. So. Fast.


Wow, it feels very natural to me, easy to use, a "little" bit cramped in doors, almost like a 30mm would have felt better.... But its take my shutter speed from 1/2 to 1/13 at base ISO so that is huge and once i bump ISO it'll be great for shooting the kids indoors.

It's so light....

It's fast focusing and does not search in low light like mt 18-105 does, does aperture effect the lens ability to AF?

[mbrobich]

I went with the 28mm F2.8 for that reason. DX crop factors in here. Also went with a 60mmF2 macro, kinda makes the same ratio as the 85mm 1.8 on FX sensor. Always have to play with those lenses to achieve what we are looking in comparison to 35mm film.

[jorf]

Just use it! Took a little getting used to but now it's the lens I keep on my camera all the time. I rarely miss the other lenses right now and it's changing my eye. Plus, they're the sharpest I get and love the 1.8! Enjoy..

[inkista]

Because this is probably your first fast prime, you'll be tempted to use it wide open at f/1.8 all the time. Go ahead and do that for a few months until the honeymoon glow fades. But after a while, start stopping it down to f/2 and f/4, and begin choosing the aperture you want to use the lens at.

Stopping down a lens often corrects issues with it, like softness, purple fringe, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. If you look at the test data for the 35/1.8, however, you'll find that while chromatic aberration is actually optimal when wide-open, for sharpness, the 35/1.8's sweet spot is around f/4. And that f/4 gives you a bit more leeway when it comes to focusing accurately (DoF), and can still blur the background.

Learn to choose the aperture you use for the tradeoffs you want. Don't just shoot wide open all the time unthinkingly. Yes, there are going to be times you want to go f/1.8 with it. But going there by default is the mark of a rookie.

[bigben6]

It will be shot wide open alot in doors just to keep my shutter speeds up, but i will adjust my DOF when out doors for sure. Good advice, thanks guys, it has been good so far!

[TheMoons678]

+1 to what inkista said

you have a flash that can be bounced indoors if lighting is terrible. Most of the shots that i take of my kid indoors are with 50mm f/1.4 used at f2-f5 with my sb600 bounced up to give soft light (mostly at night after I get home). I prefer sharp images with soft light rather than soft images bokeh'd to the max.

Although I too started off shooting wide open for all shots.

I prefer single point AF mode instead of auto area mode+reframe. Only time I put the camera on auto-area is when I hand the camera to my wife or someone else to take a pic.