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erik_dow

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  1. erik_dow

    Prime Lenses

    <p>Having walked around with the DA* 55 in the city a lot recently... it depends on what you shoot.<br> If you want to take pictures of scenes that are in front of you, like store fronts, scenes that size, you'll have to be always well across the street... and get parked cars in the view. A "wide" angle focal length like 16, 24 on a crop sensor, yeah, you emphasize the foreground in shots and have to be careful with composition. But in stepping back to take in a bigger scene with a 50, you increase the foreground over what you'd have with say 18mm (or something else that is way past the 1.5 conversion factor.) If you want to do scene-type snapshots with a 50mm on a crop sensor in a city, yes, it can be well done! But you'll find it frustrating because you really have to pick and compose your shots. I like prime lenses. But shooting in a big city just presents you with so many "forced" perspectives where you have to give up the whole composition (i.e. "perspective") if you can't change focal length. Or else be stuck with heavy cropping or heavy image stitching... no fun. <br /><br /><br> Shooting with one prime only will make you a better photographer if you work at it because sometimes you really have to work a completely different angle on a subject to get a good photo than if you had a choice of focal ranges. <br> My personal ideal setup includes the 12-24, a 24-70 2.8, and a cheap 70-200. It's just not realistic to handhold a telephoto zoom at night... a 2.8 lens is barely doable at low ISO as it is. So I go for the slow long zoom with the 'ol tripod if I have to.<br> Or my ideal setup is the DA14/2.8, FA*24/2, DA*55/1.4, and D-FA 100mm Macro 2.8 WR. Because I love night street shooting and all four are quite usable at f/2.8. It even leaves you room to think you need an FA 77 Ltd and you can add the FA 35/2 if you really like that 50mm perspective.<br> And yes. A 50mm on APS-C is close to a 75mm equivalent perspective on full-frame, when you are shooting the same composition in the viewfinder on each. You will step back further with the 50mm on 1.5 because of the narrower field of view, and you'll be at the 75mm full-frame distance when the same composition that's in the 75mm viewfinder is in your 50mm viewfinder. It works. </p>
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