davyd: lamplight

Davyd (

davyd) wrote,
@ 2008-03-13 00:40:00

lamplight
Based on nothing but good recommendations, I purchased a Canon 50mm prime f/1.8 lens the other day. I didn't actually manage to try it out until tonight.

Evening Stephanie, no flash
This photo was taken in our flat, at about 11pm with only a lamp for ambient light (no flash), the aperture wide open with the camera selecting the shutter speed (Av mode). It's still early days for me, and I'm still learning a lot about SLR photography, but this seems like a really nice result given it's only a $150 lens (the next fastest 50mm lens is f/1.4, which costs about 4x as much). The really wide aperture also gives that lovely shallow depth of field that I love so much.

It wasn't all perfect, the camera did have a little bit of trouble autofocusing, and some of my test photos were too slow, so blurred. I did some experiments in full manual to speed the shutter up, perhaps the Gimp will be able to fix up the exposure (though loading one of these photos swaps out the rest of my desktop — I think I need more RAM).

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	loic 2008-03-12 03:47 pm UTC (link)
	I just ordered the Nikon equivalent (50mm f/1.8) - can't wait to get my hands on it. I was playing with a friends a couple of weeks ago. (Reply to this)

	Move about (Anonymous) 2008-03-12 05:18 pm UTC (link)
	I use it all the time, though I am a bit disappointed at how this is the only way to do indoor or non-daylight photography most of the time. I find that small changes in position can affect the light more than I realize, so I just move about taking pictures until the shutter is not obviously ridiculously slow. Murray (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: Move about davyd 2008-03-13 01:58 am UTC (link)
	Disappointed why? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Move about (Anonymous) 2008-03-15 12:22 pm UTC (link)
	Because, in my ignorance, I want all my other expensive lenses to work indoors too. Murray (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

Re: Move about -

davyd, 2008-03-16 01:46 am UTC (Expand)

	prokoudine 2008-03-12 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	Holy shmoly, $150? Wasn't it $90 all the way? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	hub_ 2008-03-12 05:51 pm UTC (link)
	australian dollar + australian gouging on prices. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	prokoudine 2008-03-12 06:04 pm UTC (link)
	ah, right :) thanks for the pointer! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	davyd 2008-03-12 11:14 pm UTC (link)
	It's funny, because the Australian dollar is now almost at parity with the US dollar, but we're still paying the same prices for things. The Government is certainly taking their cut, but someone, somewhere is making a lot of money at the moment. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	hub_ 2008-03-12 05:52 pm UTC (link)
	I hate the f1.8 so much that I ended up buying the f1.4. the x4 price is really worth it when you want 1/ fast focus 2/ usable manual focus. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	davyd 2008-03-12 11:16 pm UTC (link)
	It does look like a significantly superior lens, and probably quite reasonably priced, but I'm still beginning so it's just not worth it for me. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2008-03-14 01:04 am UTC (link)
	I hated the location of the focus ring on the 1.8 MkII so much that I bought the original 1.8 on eBay for ~US$150. As an added bonus, it uses a metal mount instead of a plastic mount. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	davyd 2008-03-14 01:11 am UTC (link)
	I read that this was considered a superior lens construction-wise, but that optically it was the same. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-03-14 09:15 pm UTC (Expand)

	hub_ 2008-03-14 02:54 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, the older version was much more attractive. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	splintax 2008-03-14 09:51 am UTC (link)
	I just had a play with this lens and I have to agree, the focusing ring is very difficult to use. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	davyd 2008-03-14 11:46 am UTC (link)
	My main complaint with it so far is that the Auto/Manual switch doesn't disengage as nicely as you might like, so sometimes you can feel the gear train railing against the focus ring. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2008-03-12 08:12 pm UTC (link)
	"I think I need more RAM" Unfortunately this is what most developers say today, since they live in first world countries and hardware is cheap... I would say I think your desktop needs memory optimisation (except ofcourse if you only have 128-256MB of RAM). (Reply to this)(Thread)

	theducks 2008-03-12 11:02 pm UTC (link)
	You've never edited photos before using a computer, have you? The image editing program usually keeps several versions of the full size uncompressed image at 32bpp (~32MB each) in memory, plus alpha trans, masks etc. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

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davyd, 2008-03-12 11:34 pm UTC (Expand)

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theducks, 2008-03-12 11:51 pm UTC (Expand)

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davyd, 2008-03-13 12:11 am UTC (Expand)

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stibbons, 2008-03-13 01:33 am UTC (Expand)

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davyd, 2008-03-13 01:37 am UTC (Expand)

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stibbons, 2008-03-13 01:44 am UTC (Expand)

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stibbons, 2008-03-13 01:46 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

davyd, 2008-03-13 01:55 am UTC (Expand)

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splintax, 2008-03-14 10:13 am UTC (Expand)

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davyd, 2008-03-14 11:43 am UTC (Expand)

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ataxi, 2008-03-13 12:27 am UTC (Expand)

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davyd, 2008-03-13 12:41 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

theducks, 2008-03-13 01:34 am UTC (Expand)

blah blah -

ataxi, 2008-03-13 03:45 am UTC (Expand)

Re: blah blah -

davyd, 2008-03-13 04:09 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

ataxi, 2008-03-13 03:49 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

davyd, 2008-03-13 04:02 am UTC (Expand)

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ataxi, 2008-03-13 05:28 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-03-13 07:54 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

davyd, 2008-03-13 08:50 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-03-13 09:02 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

davyd, 2008-03-13 01:39 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-03-13 04:47 pm UTC (Expand)

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davyd, 2008-03-13 11:38 pm UTC (Expand)

davyd
2008-03-12 11:30 pm UTC (link)

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND            
  573 davyd     15   0  163m 138m   9m S  0.0 28.0   0:06.27 gimp               
 8707 davyd     15   0  391m  95m  14m R  7.6 19.2 147:14.33 firefox-bin        
16097 davyd     15   0  290m  65m  10m S  0.0 13.1  23:20.17 evolution          
 5455 davyd     15   0  255m  24m  10m S  0.0  4.9   8:36.89 nautilus           
 4970 root      15   0  413m  22m 5688 S  0.0  4.6  46:30.77 Xorg

So just opening the image as a JPG requires 30% of the memory on my machine. If I want to start doing things like applying gain recovery filters, it starts getting painful. The thing is, there is no magic panacea here, if you start manipulating large pieces of data you need lots of memory.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-03-13 07:46 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

davyd, 2008-03-13 08:38 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-03-13 08:57 am UTC (Expand)

(no subject) -

davyd, 2008-03-13 01:43 pm UTC (Expand)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-03-13 04:36 pm UTC (Expand)

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davyd, 2008-03-13 11:31 pm UTC (Expand)

	matt.ucc.asn.au 2008-03-12 10:52 pm UTC (link)
	Looks fairly good. Though if you're discussing photo quality, link a full size image! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	theducks 2008-03-12 11:02 pm UTC (link)
	/signed (Reply to this)(Parent)

	davyd 2008-03-12 11:38 pm UTC (link)
	I wasn't so much discussing image quality as general photo quality. In order to get it fast enough, I shot at ISO1600; so it's a bit grainy and noisy and not quite as crisp as you might like when you look up close. That said it's not noticeable at screen-resolution viewing sizes and probably wouldn't be that noticeable in a print. (Reply to this)(Parent)

stibbons
2008-03-13 01:41 am UTC (link)

For the price, the 50mm 1.8 really is an awesome piece of glass. :-)

I haven't seen the autofocussing problem you mention, though. The 50mm on my EOS-3 is unbelievably fast and nails the focus every time. The 400D is slower, but the only time I've caught it hunting back and forth was in very low light.

You might also try turning the exposure compensation down a little. I almost always underexpose 1/3 of a stop, but depending on your scene you can push it down to 2/3 or even a full stop without losing the detail you want.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

davyd
2008-03-13 01:54 am UTC (link)

I was in very low light. One CF lamp to illuminate the whole room. It locked straight away in (dull) daylight. The 400D body is one I'm borrowing until I can buy the 450D for myself (which hopefully arrives before my wedding/honeymoon). The 450D has the new DIGIC III, so hopefully the AF is on par with some of the more expensive EOSs (that said, the 400D is not that bad).

I took some test photos with the exposure down, they're a bit dark, but I think they can be corrected up ok. I just haven't tried yet.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2008-03-13 09:04 am UTC (link)
	Photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/) is pretty nice for adjusting exposure levels afterwards if you shoot in raw, and it also lets you produce HDR compositions which is pretty cool. It runs perfectly in wine, and you can find it at your torrent site of choice. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	davyd 2008-03-13 01:50 pm UTC (link)
	You appear to be advocating software piracy. That's a pretty epic fail... (Reply to this)(Parent)

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