Aloicious
No longer a newbie, moving up!
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- Mar 12, 2010
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Okay, I've searched around a bit, but didn't find anything that quite gave me the answer I was looking for. sorry for the long post, but bear with me.
here's the deal, equipment specs are in my sig...I recently got my first prime focus lens, the 50mm 1.8D, and was recently shooting some pics at a family function as well as a small concert (~50 people in attendance), and was not overly impressed with the 50mm,
during the concert I had to use available light which wasn't tons (a couple of regular 4' fluorescent tube lights near the performers but not extremely close). I was probably about 20' away from them (far enough to get them both in frame comfortably, but close enough to do some cropping or something if I want to focus on one of them, no big deal) I basically had to keep it at f1.8 most of the time (A priority mode, auto ISO up to around 800 or so, most of the time it chose between 250-500ISO) in order to get faster shutter speeds and reduce camera shake. but I found that the autofocus was fairly poor. there were a few that turned out pretty well, but alot of them were just all around soft, some of them focused behind the performers (even with the center point focus directly on their faces). I swapped to my 18-200 and it focused MUCH better, however due to the slower lens I did get more camera shake with existing light, but those without the shake were cleaner than the 50mm 1.8...I also found I couldn't autofocus if I was closer than 4' or so from the subject, I know the 50mm isn't a super close focuser, but 4' seems a bit excessive to me.
the next night I had a small family function I was shooting, and I found simmilar focusing issues with the 50mm even with mt sb400 flash bounced off the ceiling in a living room with ~5 60w incandescent bulbs. everything still was pretty soft with some focus problems. I believe I was still shooting in the f1.8-f2.2 range (in retrospect I should have changed the f-stop, but c'est la via, I am pretty new to shooting people)...another issue I found with the 50mm at this function was I was always telling people to back up and I had to back up myself, standing against the wall at times, to get the framing decent (same spacial issue at the concert I was taking some shots at some of some of the attendees and kids there afterward and found I had to get uncomfortably far away to get things right).
SO...the easy question I have is, now I'm considering a 35mm 1.8G for general people shooting which I like to do. I don't mind getting a little closer to the subjects to frame stuff right, but I don't like running out of room to back up. my question is the 35mm SHOULD appear like a ~55mm length on my DX sensor D90, Right? whereas my 50mm acts more like a 80mm lens. with the crop sensor conversion, the 35mm will be more 'normal' rather than 'wide angle', right? so I won't get too much (hopefully not any) fishbowling? and also, I don't want to buy the 35mm and waste my money because its too close to the 50mm. I'm just an amateur, so its not like I get paid gigs, but I do have friends who ask me to shoot small events from time to time and such, which I enjoy, but I'm not rich, so budget is a factor, I could spare the extra $200 for the 35mm, but I don't want to waste $200 on a lens that wouldn't see much use.
the harder question is what is up with my 50mm, is it me? is it a lens problem? if it is a lens problem, is it a known issue or should I have it looked at? I have shot some small landscape scenes at f5.6 and they turned out pretty sharp, but that was outdoors in daylight. I thought the f1.8 would be good in low light. and if there is issues at wider aperture settings, does the 35mm 1.8 suffer from the same issues? ...I'm at work so I can't post some sample pics, but thought I'd throw the questions out there first.
sorry again for the long post...
here's the deal, equipment specs are in my sig...I recently got my first prime focus lens, the 50mm 1.8D, and was recently shooting some pics at a family function as well as a small concert (~50 people in attendance), and was not overly impressed with the 50mm,
during the concert I had to use available light which wasn't tons (a couple of regular 4' fluorescent tube lights near the performers but not extremely close). I was probably about 20' away from them (far enough to get them both in frame comfortably, but close enough to do some cropping or something if I want to focus on one of them, no big deal) I basically had to keep it at f1.8 most of the time (A priority mode, auto ISO up to around 800 or so, most of the time it chose between 250-500ISO) in order to get faster shutter speeds and reduce camera shake. but I found that the autofocus was fairly poor. there were a few that turned out pretty well, but alot of them were just all around soft, some of them focused behind the performers (even with the center point focus directly on their faces). I swapped to my 18-200 and it focused MUCH better, however due to the slower lens I did get more camera shake with existing light, but those without the shake were cleaner than the 50mm 1.8...I also found I couldn't autofocus if I was closer than 4' or so from the subject, I know the 50mm isn't a super close focuser, but 4' seems a bit excessive to me.
the next night I had a small family function I was shooting, and I found simmilar focusing issues with the 50mm even with mt sb400 flash bounced off the ceiling in a living room with ~5 60w incandescent bulbs. everything still was pretty soft with some focus problems. I believe I was still shooting in the f1.8-f2.2 range (in retrospect I should have changed the f-stop, but c'est la via, I am pretty new to shooting people)...another issue I found with the 50mm at this function was I was always telling people to back up and I had to back up myself, standing against the wall at times, to get the framing decent (same spacial issue at the concert I was taking some shots at some of some of the attendees and kids there afterward and found I had to get uncomfortably far away to get things right).
SO...the easy question I have is, now I'm considering a 35mm 1.8G for general people shooting which I like to do. I don't mind getting a little closer to the subjects to frame stuff right, but I don't like running out of room to back up. my question is the 35mm SHOULD appear like a ~55mm length on my DX sensor D90, Right? whereas my 50mm acts more like a 80mm lens. with the crop sensor conversion, the 35mm will be more 'normal' rather than 'wide angle', right? so I won't get too much (hopefully not any) fishbowling? and also, I don't want to buy the 35mm and waste my money because its too close to the 50mm. I'm just an amateur, so its not like I get paid gigs, but I do have friends who ask me to shoot small events from time to time and such, which I enjoy, but I'm not rich, so budget is a factor, I could spare the extra $200 for the 35mm, but I don't want to waste $200 on a lens that wouldn't see much use.
the harder question is what is up with my 50mm, is it me? is it a lens problem? if it is a lens problem, is it a known issue or should I have it looked at? I have shot some small landscape scenes at f5.6 and they turned out pretty sharp, but that was outdoors in daylight. I thought the f1.8 would be good in low light. and if there is issues at wider aperture settings, does the 35mm 1.8 suffer from the same issues? ...I'm at work so I can't post some sample pics, but thought I'd throw the questions out there first.
sorry again for the long post...
