05 June 2012

Which Glass: 85mm, 50mm, 35mm

Stepping down from BurgerWeek was hard. Was tempted to extend the week with another visit to Lucky Chip but resisted. Saturday made a big salad with roast chicken, eggs, roquefort, radishes, chives, gem lettuce, spinach, beetroot, romano peppers (fresh and roasted), tomatoes. Sunday salmon in coconut milk with fresh ginger, garlic, lemon, turmeric. By Monday begin drifting a bit burgerish with a beef and chorizo chili. One of the welcome surprises from BurgerWeek was how much I like my new lens.

A while ago I bought a new Nikkor 85mm f1.4. Great lens. Especially good at taking candid-ish portrait shots. Was long enough to be unobtrusive. Super-fast. But it was kind of specialized and a bit difficult to use. Bit long for longer exposures without some jitter (no VR), and open wide the depth of field was tiny. When it worked, it was amazing. But I wasn't often reaching for it.

Fortunately, I was able to sell it for more than I paid for it. It's a mystery to me why it appreciated in value, but I'm not complaining. With the proceeds, I bought a Tokina 11-16mm, which is still great fun, and a 50mm f1.8, and had change left over. The 50mm didn't work out as I thought. It was too short to get quality candid photos as I had with the 85mm, and too long for indoor work. Seemed neither here nor there for me.

So prior to BurgerWeek I sold it and stepped up to the more expensive 35mm f1.8. Well, I love it. It's short enough and fast enough to use indoors with humans (and food), and seems generally sharper than the 50mm as well. It works fine as a walking around lens -- the first serious competition in that category to my 18-200mm VR. Really nice lens from Nikon.

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