Pics from the 55mm deal. 56ker's beware

[Chewbecca]

They are not bad, honestly, for your first shots with this lens.
I'd like them better, I think, if I knew they were not shot at f1.2, though.
It's hard to say what I think of the pictures with this lens, when I don't know one of the important settings for the pictures taken with this lens.
Does that make sense?

Are you even allowed to adjust the aperture with this lens at all?
I know you have to set the aperture dial ON the lens to the highest fnumber, but IN your camera, you should be able to adjust the aperture that way.
And before I can give my opinion (not that MY opinion should determine ANYTHING, but...) on whether or not you should buy this lens, I'd want to know if you can adjust the aperture AT ALL, even in the camera (which is where the aperture is set anyway).
Because if you cannot adjust the aperture at all, then I wouldn't buy it.
Because the whole greatness of this lens is the fact that it opens up to f1.2 and it's a prime and primes are typically sharper than any other lenses.
But if you cannot open that lens to f1.2 (adjust the aperture), then the lens would be pointless, imo. And I would assume that to be the opinion of most.

Would you buy the 50mm f1.8 if you could not open that lens up at all?

 

[JerryPH]

Manual focusing, if you have not done it before in the past, takes some getting used to. For a first try, its not bad.

As far as EXIF info... in this case, it's really not necessary. The owner will know if he is at F/1.2 or not and I think the point was just to show us that the lens works.

Looks like a nice deal for $100.

 

[Chewbecca]

I was simply suggesting that if the owner didn't know if the aperture was set at a certain fnumber, how would he know what his aperture was set at, really?
When I first got my 50mm f1.8 for my D60, it took me about 20 minutes of frustration to even understand that I had to set my aperture IN camera.
D'oh!
I have no clue what level of knowledge Hankejp has as far as setting aperture.
I also wasn't/am not sure if the lens apeture is settable (is that even a word?) if he says it's a non-CPU lens.
I, personally, don't know that info. That's why I was asking him.

 

[hankejp]

I was simply suggesting that if the owner didn't know if the aperture was set at a certain fnumber, how would he know what his aperture was set at, really?
When I first got my 50mm f1.8 for my D60, it took me about 20 minutes of frustration to even understand that I had to set my aperture IN camera.
D'oh!
I have no clue what level of knowledge Hankejp has as far as setting aperture.
I also wasn't/am not sure if the lens apeture is settable (is that even a word?) if he says it's a non-CPU lens.
I, personally, don't know that info. That's why I was asking him.

Thank you everyone for your input. I just talked to the guy who owns, or should I say owned the lens. He said that no, you don't set the aperture on the body. It's all done on the lens. It'll take some getting used to, but I did go ahead and bought the lens from him. I figure hell, $100 for the lens and 6 filters, not a bad deal. I'll be shooting some gymnastics practices in the next week or so. Then I'll have a good idea how well it works.

 

[JerryPH]

He said that no, you don't set the aperture on the body. It's all done on the lens.

On a D40? Sorry, but I sincerely think he is wrong. *If* your D40 works the same as my D200 (and I think it is the same for all modern Nikon dSLRs), using a non-CPU lens and having the aperture at anything BUT the highest, it gives me an error code.

The camera needs to be controlling the aperture.

It'll take some getting used to, but I did go ahead and bought the lens from him. I figure hell, $100 for the lens and 6 filters, not a bad deal. I'll be shooting some gymnastics practices in the next week or so. Then I'll have a good idea how well it works.

Awesome. Practice a lot beforehand, using a lens with such a shallow DOF initially results in a TON of out of focus pics until you are more comfortable with it.

 

[hankejp]

On a D40? Sorry, but I sincerely think he is wrong. *If* your D40 works the same as my D200 (and I think it is the same for all modern Nikon dSLRs), using a non-CPU lens and having the aperture at anything BUT the highest, it gives me an error code.

The camera needs to be controlling the aperture.



Awesome. Practice a lot beforehand, using a lens with such a shallow DOF initially results in a TON of out of focus pics until you are more comfortable with it.

Thanks for the info Jerry. I will test tonight and see if I can change the aperture on the body, in manual mode.