The fabulous fifty...

...millimeter, that is.

Back in the day I used my dad's Nikon S2 35mm rangefinder camera. It has three lenses: a 35mm wide-angle, a 50mm normal, and a 135mm telephoto. I used the 50mm normal lens the most. When my dad switched over to a Pentax 35mm SLR with zoom lenses I started using those. Eventually I used nothing but zooms.

I lost interest in using prime lenses. Yes, I knew that an 85mm or a 105mm lens was great for portraits, but I used a zoom that covered that focal range. Yes, I knew primes were always faster than zooms, but I didn't feel a need for a fast lens for low-light situations. And I didn't want the hassle of switching lenses: having a zoom negated that problem.

But...using a zoom in low light meant I had to increase my ISO on a digital SLR to sometimes undesirable heights. I wasn't happy with all the electronic noise as a result. So I started researching wide-angle (35mm) and "normal" (i.e., 50mm) prime lenses to use on a Nikon APS-C SLR, and finally settled on the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D lens. It was cheap and "fast" (allowed lots of light in). And with my crop factor of 1.5, the 50mm has the field of view of a 75mm lens on a 35mm film or full-frame digital SLR (which makes it act like a short telephoto lens).

Oh...and I need to remember that I have to move when I'm framing a subject.

Here are some examples using the 50mm:

I use it a lot wide open (maybe to a fault), as you can see. I focus on the eyes, and shooting with the aperture wide open causes the background to blur nicely.

It's sharp, the bokeh is nice, and with the aperture diaphragm made up of straight blades instead of rounded ones, you'll get wonderful 14-point sunstars when the lens is stopped down to f/16 or f/22. You can get one for about $125. It's being replaced by the newly-introduced 50mm f/1.8G.

(Important note: the 50mm f/1.8G AF-S will autofocus on the cheapest Nikon DSLR's (like the D40, D40X, D60, D3000, D3100, D5000, and D5100. The 50mm f/1.8 AF-D, the subject of this post, will not autofocus on the models I've listed.)

In your ear

Yesterday I was browsing through some pictures I took back in October 2005 of Nikki and Sadie. We had had Nikki for eight years by then, and Sadie for a year. I was with them in the backyard patio, looking for an excuse to use my 70-200mm f/2.8 VR zoom (a wonderfully-made, but heavy, lens that I don't get to use often enough). They were acting pretty cute with each other so I waited to get a shot of them both. Nikki was sniffing Sadie's head as she sometimes did when I took this.

I had zoomed out to 70mm but because of the D200's crop factor of 1.5, my field of view was equivalent to a 105mm lens on a 35mm film or full-frame digital SLR. The lighting is a little unusual because they were standing in a patch of light falling on concrete, which in turn reflected the light upwards. So both girls are illuminated from underneath to a certain point, at which the rest of them is bluish due to them standing in shade.

This image has appeared in a Celebrating Greyhounds calendar, as well as on the Ohio State University's Greyhound Health and Wellness Program's website and their quarterly newsletters.

Six years since I took this picture. Six years...it doesn't seem possible.

(Shot with the Nikon D200 and the 70-200mm VR zoom set at 70mm; aperture-priority, with aperture set at f/5.6; camera chose shutter speed of 1/45 second at ISO 200; auto white balance; fine JPG.)