Fantastic Plastic, Nifty Fifty, Potato-Potahto

Mandolin

TPF Noob!
Joined
Jun 3, 2014
Messages
84
Reaction score
77
Location
Shores of Lake Erie
Can others edit my Photos
Photos OK to edit
Ordered my Canon 50mm 1.8 yesterday!! This will be my first 50mm, and for $70, I jumped on it. Waiting for it's arrival is torture...give me some project ideas!
 
Not a project idea but.................get through the cool bokeh stage quickly. F1.8 not always your friend :)
 
I love f/1.8 for flower photos
and f/4-5.6 for people ... okay .. I also do 2.8 for people and I've seen some great 1.4 shots for boudour ...


so start with doing flowers at 1.8
then find a long brick wall .. and put a person in the middle of it posing ... at 1.8 focused on the person from a 15 to 30 degree angle of the wall.

EDIT: vary your distance to the person posing too ... you can see you DOF change depending upon distance.
 
Last edited:
Not a project idea but.................get through the cool bokeh stage quickly. F1.8 not always your friend :)

Actually, with this particular lens, if you're shooting for bokeh at all, I'd recommend opening up all the way. The five straight aperture blades on this lens tend to produce a pretty strongly-shaped bokeh when stopped down.

Caught in the Act
 
Not a project idea but.................get through the cool bokeh stage quickly. F1.8 not always your friend :)

I'm glad you say this.

I just realized the other day how much my photography habits have changed.

I rarely shoot wide open now.

Bokeh doesn't make it a great picture.

Taking a great picture is what makes it great.
 
Not a project idea but.................get through the cool bokeh stage quickly. F1.8 not always your friend

Actually, with this particular lens, if you're shooting for bokeh at all, I'd recommend opening up all the way. The five straight aperture blades on this lens tend to produce a pretty strongly-shaped bokeh when stopped down.

Caught in the Act

Love that shot!

Prior to finding TPF, it seems that most everything I saw or read had something to do with bokeh. I toooootally understand the infactuation, the hook, the draw.
My life was all about bokeh for a while :), especially with that lens. But then TPF had to ruin it all. :spank::violin: :whip::biglaugh:

It certainly has it's place even with that lens.
 
I'm sure I'll play around with the bokeh a bit ;)

Mostly I'm stoked about getting my first prime lens. Feeling inspired. Thanks for the ideas so far!
 
Not a project idea but.................get through the cool bokeh stage quickly. F1.8 not always your friend :)

I'm glad you say this.

I just realized the other day how much my photography habits have changed.

I rarely shoot wide open now.

Bokeh doesn't make it a great picture.

Taking a great picture is what makes it great.

It can be a trap :)
 
I'm sure I'll play around with the bokeh a bit ;)

Mostly I'm stoked about getting my first prime lens. Feeling inspired. Thanks for the ideas so far!

It really is fun in the beginning. Looking forward to seeing what project you come up with.
 
Even at f/4, close up, you can take most of your photo totally whacked out of focus
$14318056371_da79f8d56b_c.jpg
 
Love that shot!

Prior to finding TPF, it seems that most everything I saw or read had something to do with bokeh. I toooootally understand the infactuation, the hook, the draw.
My life was all about bokeh for a while :), especially with that lens. But then TPF had to ruin it all. :spank::violin: :whip::biglaugh:

It certainly has it's place even with that lens.

Thanks, and don't get me wrong -- I still love that lens. A 50mm lens on a crop-body camera isn't an outstanding landscape lens most of the time, for instance, but if it fits, I still love this lens. Just in case anyone ever tells you this lens isn't sharp, rest assured -- it's probably not the lens:

Urban escape by lambertpix, on Flickr

And just in case you were wondering, the bokeh wide-open:

Reflecting by lambertpix, on Flickr
 
A 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 or f/2 lens is small, light, and unobtrusive; it;'s a lens that does not draw attention to itself, or to the photographer using it. A 50 of this type is SMALL!!! That is a big strength. It keeps people from feeling spied upon, or intimidated. So, that makes it a pretty good choice for candid shots of people. Real, regular people. The main benefit to a prime lens is that its angle of view is always constant, so after a while of using it, you learn to "see" what that lens will frame, without even needing to look through the camera. And as others have stated--depth of field at close ranges is SHALLOW!!!
 
I really like my 50/1.8. It's my "doing stuff indoors" lens - like a museum or the Science Centre, etc. And like lambertpix said, it does a decent job at landscapes of a certain type as well. It's pretty much permanently on my camera in the winter.
 
A 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 or f/2 lens is small, light, and unobtrusive; it;'s a lens that does not draw attention to itself, or to the photographer using it. A 50 of this type is SMALL!!! That is a big strength. It keeps people from feeling spied upon, or intimidated. So, that makes it a pretty good choice for candid shots of people. Real, regular people. The main benefit to a prime lens is that its angle of view is always constant, so after a while of using it, you learn to "see" what that lens will frame, without even needing to look through the camera. And as others have stated--depth of field at close ranges is SHALLOW!!!

Except the sigma 50mil art. That things a TANK.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Most reactions

New Topics

Back
Top