An Overlooked Lens

Deborah and I kept Zoey this afternoon. She had on a shirt with the message "I Am Ready For My Closeup" so I had to do some new pictures. She was on the couch with Deborah, they were playing, having a big ole time so I grabbed the camera. I dug out my old 50f1.8 Nikkor lens last week and decided to shoot with it.

THis is the original Nikon kit lens. Back in the day, if you bought a Nikon body with a "normal" lens, this was it.  A really fast lens compared to today's kit lenses, Usually you get a short zoom that covers the 50mm lens, but it at least an f3.5. Can hurt if you want to shoot in low light.

These were shot in our living room, a pretty dark room. ISO 1600, at f2.8 and around 30th of a second.

On the digital camera the 50 is about a 70mm when you figure in the 1.5 magnification factor. Makes a handy piece of glass. Great for low light, great for blowing out the background.  If I had used the 28mm, I would have had close to the lens speed, but even wide open a lot more background. Plus with these the compression was kinda nice. 

I had forgotten about this old lens, it has spent most of its life unused sitting on a shelf. My friend and fellow Nikon shooter Erica Lewis had emailed me a while back looking for a 50F1.4. After talking with her I decided to find my 50 and give it a try. It is going in my bag.