Fortnightly Challenge -- April 16 thru April 29 -- Topic: Golden Hour/50mm

[El Cabong]

Someone dragged me out yesterday, so here are some last-minute additions.

 

[JDDavis]

I was just experimenting with my nifty-fifty on my D50 on day while on one of my "shoot the fishing boats" excursions. For some reason in the light late in the afternoon, I fixated on the cables used to make this boardwalk railing/fence... the nifty-fifty will just do that to you. Get one! Cheap, light, and darn good little optics for any camera bag...
This isn't wide open, shot at f/4. It slightly increases the depth of field, and hits a sweet spot for sharpness. But, the focal zone is still pretty narrow.



Camera: Nikon D50 w/50mm f/1.8
Exposure: 1/2500 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV

You're getting some great results out of that 50mm at what seems to be small distances to the subject. How close would you say you were in this shot? At 6ft+ I do pretty well with my 50mm 1.8 but inside of that and at f/4 and wider it's pretty tough. Kudos for managing the DOF very well in these shots.

 

[pdxflint]

challenge last day, so here are a few nifty-fifty shots...

You're getting some great results out of that 50mm at what seems to be small distances to the subject. How close would you say you were in this shot? At 6ft+ I do pretty well with my 50mm 1.8 but inside of that and at f/4 and wider it's pretty tough. Kudos for managing the DOF very well in these shots.

Thanks Jeff. I don't think of it a doing anything out of the ordinary, but what I do for the 'close-ups' is just focus as close as I can to something, usually moving closer and further while looking through the viewfinder until I'm sure of the closest distance I can be, then I back up just a twitch if I'm shooting wide open to reduce chance of losing that focal plane by the slightest movement.
Here are a few more...

Only a narrow focus plane, most of this is out of focus even though it's also stopped down to f/4.0... so I'm not really sure it works. If everything was in sharp focus by stopping down, the background might have been sharp, which I definitely didn't want.


Camera: Nikon D50 w/Nikkor50mm f/1.8
Exposure: 1/2000
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV

just a cup on my messy desk...

Model: NIKON D300 w/50mm f/1.8
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/90 sec
Aperture: 1.8
Focal Length: 50mm

dirty cup waiting for the dishwasher...

Model: D50 w/50mm f/1.8
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: 1.8
Focal Length: 50mm

salt and pepper

Model: D50
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/80 sec
Aperture: 1.8
Focal Length: 50mm

And to experiment with how much fine detail I could capture with my nifty-fifty wide open, I cropped this... it's lampshade thread. D50 @ 800iso, slight sharpening, no noise reduction, if you were wondering about the grain...

from this...

Model: D50
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/500 sec
Aperture: 1.8
Focal Length: 50mm

 

[joepunk]

Nice capture of a moment. What was your shutter speed? Was the blue light enough or was this on a tripod? You did a very good job getting his face sharp in what seems like pretty low light. Nice.

Late reply I know.

Don't remember what the shutter speed was. Probably around the 1/30 or 50 hand held.