Buying your first f/1.8 lens and how to go about using it...

Or f/1.4 or f/1.2 or f/1 or f/0.95 lens for that matter... I think I will have to start some mini-lessons on the blog (Partly cos the forums is a rather ineffective medium and because of the level of skills of the current kiddos...)

You know, I've seen this funny cycle many many times before and it goes like this: Our new batch of kids come in and when they go out for an assignment, they will always fight over the zoom lens even though it has a crappy aperture size of f/3.5-5.6.. and of cos as time passes by, they will eventually realize that its kinda crappy and they all will start swapping over to the primes because of its fast aperture.

And when they finally realize the power of f/1.4 or f/1.8 as did our Dear Mr Chee during prom night, they will go trigger happy and gloating in their minds "Wah!! I can take sharper pics in such low light condition compared to when I use that crap 18-55mm"

So... shoot shoot they go and after the assignment is over they go home happily feeling a sense of achievement, power up their computer, pop the CF card into the card reader and start looking through their photos only to realize that their pictures are all a tad blur here and there...its not blur enough to be very bad, but its blur enough to be unable to be saved by software methods. And of cos this blur is not caused by handshake (if it is, den I got nth to say le) (by the way, its really tough to type with long fingernails...sheesh, keep smashing into the wrong keys and my nails hurt..wonder how the girls tahan sia...) but by being out of focus!!

And of cos by then, the kids feel like running to their seniors... but they'd have long said, "Sayonara and take care of the next batch *winks* *V sign*" so when they return their photos to the gallery manager, they will probably get scolded by the exco, as did our Dear Mr. Chee... (haha.. calling chee, our Dear Mr. Chee is so communist!! hahahahahaha roflmao)

So the whole point of this post is to tell you straight up in your face the limitations of such primes and options of working around the problems faced without you having to go for classes, hire instructors, going through trial and error and screwing up your assignment (but if you already have, then too bad...) Ahh.. that was a long intro.. pls dun write such a long intro for your GP, cos you'd more or less fail...and dun put in so many brackets in ur GP paper too.. it ain't some commentary you know...

Anyway, back to the topic, you all by now should know that anything less than f/2.8 gives a rather shallow DOF (and if u didn't know that you need to put up a complain to quent le..) yup, and because of that, its tough for your camera to focus at the correct point, cos the AF sensor in the lower end DSLR like the D100 and the 350D aren't very good, which is further exacerbated when u have a tiny viewfinder (maybe onli me and Eunice finds it that way) and a lousy viewfinder screen (if you wanna know why, pls dun hesitate to call and ask me^^) which results in you being unable to tell the focus properly on the viewfinder (and yes, you ARE supposed to be able to tell the DOF on the viewfinder, that's the way viewfinders were supposed to be made, just that most DSLRs tend to cut corners in these areas and are only able to define up to f/2.8 [so even if your DOF is f/1.4 , it will still look like a f/2.8 DOF on your viewfinder screen] only to compensate for a brighter screen to accommodate to those slowwwww zoom lenses)

So the solution to this problem? Buy a higher end DSLR, which will make PPC retort, "No Money!! No Money!!" and make the girls complain, 'Why so heavy?!?!" (esp if they mount the 70-200mm on it) and make Chin Chye one very happy photoger.

Next, at less than f/2.8, the DOF is so shallow that your subject tends to fall out of the DOF easily, especially when you sway foreward and backwards or when your bloody subject just won't keep still, or is just too err... deep to fit into your whole DOF...lols...

Solution? Rapid press the half shutter, to ensure that your focus is always "updated". Alternatively, you can always use continuous servo a.k.a. the camera will keep on tracking your subject and focus all the time. But I hate AF-C cos, it sux... its not smart enough to tell which is the subj. and keeps focusing all the time, making that "jig jig jig jig jig" noise making the focus go back and foreword, back and foreword which is just plain freaking irritating and pisses me off to such a point I can barely concentrate that makes me want to throw the cam off the top of the Westin Stanford ( I always call it the Westin Stanford, cos that was what it was called during my time and it sounds good and these days they keep changing the damn name so many times on a whim that I can barely keep up with it.)

Also, did you know that when your focus tend towards infinity, your DOF becomes larger? and when u focus closer, the DOF shrinks even at the same aperture. So if you want a as large as possible DOF at wide aperture, den shoot at infinity... of cos, then everyone looks small:P, but you can't help it can you?

And lastly, at wide open, your pictures tends to come out soft.. the edges not really sharp and stuff.. and that's cos you shot at wide open a.k.a. widest aperture. But don't be pissed, it happens on every lens, including your crap zoom lens, just that it ain't so obvious

So what to do abt it? stop down! if you want your pics to be sharp, set the aperture to 2 stops below your widest aperture a.k.a. 6 clicks down on your camera. that will give you a resulting aperture of f3.5. Then you ask me, if I'm gonna use f/3.5 then why bother using a fast prime in the first place?!?! Well, that's cos you want it to be sharp, dumb dumb!! Why not use that crappy zoom lens then?!?! also f/3.5 wad... That's cos if the widest is f/3.5 den you have to stop down to f/7.1 you !@#$%^&* ( I can't think of anymore P.C. words to scold people...)

That's why rich people buy f/1.2 lenses so aft compensating for 2 stops, its only f/1.8 and for those with unlimited budget, f0.95 which after compensation, gives you only f/1.2. A faster lens will allow you to reach optimum sharpness at a shallower DOF than a slower lens. But you will still be limited by the size of the DOF...

So to those thinking of buying your first prime lens (or bringing a prime out for an assignment), hope you know what you are getting and know your limitations. Make sure you check your photos!! which means zooming in to make sure its sharp cos all small photos look sharp!!

Ahh, was a long post..haha.. practically half the post is me rambling.. hehe..