I do love the results, but I find it kinda frustrating to work with… getting razor sharp focus seems harder for me than with any of my other lenses. Shoddy technique? Perhaps. Or maybe I'm just too much of a pixel peeper.
In the meantime, here's a couple from a recent trip to Legoland with the Munchkin…
love them. can totally relate as your little one looks very close in age to mine. the one where hes squatting with his knees is very familiar to me. Every time our son does this, i feel the pain in my own knees and wonder how they heck do they do this all day lol.
I still get soft shots with my 58 as well, its just the nature of the lens i have taken but to me its worth it. I love the rendering, the FOV, the bokeh and the color and textures the lens produces. if that means I need to chimp more and take a few extra shots compared to the 85 or other lenses then so be it. once yo use it enough, you figure out YOUR lens. these things are like kids and everyone's 58 lens behaves differently for them like a child and you have to figure yours out and how to predict what its doing.
With mine i now have figured out that when i press the shutter and get focus confirmation, i dont accept that and always press it 2nd or 3rd time and then trust that focus conformation more than the first. I also stay away from close subjects if I dont want soft focus images or if I do get up close i stop down to F2.. when you get close with this lens liek FACE or head shots and shoot wide open.. the focal place is way too thin and nothing is in focus except one thing and gets frustrating. when you are too close, the DOF of your back ground is accentuated and F2 still looks like f1.4. I only use 1.4 when i'm at medium or infinity distances and I want that 3D back ground effect.
I spent days and days trying to find the perfect fine tune. This lens is definitely a bit flakey for reliable consistent focus. What I find is the following:
1. Makes sure you fine tuned to perfection! If you see green or magenta CA on where your focus should be, you are out of focus.
2. Use outer focus points rather than focus & recompose. The lens has a very uneven focus plane and at closer distances focus & recompose will cause soft images.
3. Use AF-C, single point. Focus on the eye/face depending on distance and shot gun about 3-5 shots for each pose in rapid succession. I find at least 1-2 of those shots will be perfectly in focus. It definitely increases your shot count but I find it a very successful way to focus bracket your images.
great points. that uneven focal plane is a killer. Its how people get that swirl but only when they focus on a subject thats close and the back ground swirls but if you dont have a close subject then you get no swirl.
Nice work Hardcore!
The last one is exquisite; the boy's reaction to the falling leaves, the girl's look on her brother, the hands... A photo that will be cherished for a long time not only by their parents but also by the kids themselves in a few years.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not the lens. It's our camera AF system.
The lens and all its 'imperfections' all contribute to the way it renders which is what we all love about it.
The AF system we currently have just isn't the best for a lens with complex field curvature but the D5's just around the corner which brings with it a new generation of AF. Here's hoping we get a better solution.
A system with some element of imaging sensor-based AF should solve all the AF inaccuracy issues.
This was a pano stitch... Brenizer method shot. consisted of about 15 shots as the hallway was cramped and one single shot only got the head and some of the shoulders originally.
nextelbuddy wrote:
This was a pano stitch... Brenizer method shot. consisted of about 15 shots as the hallway was cramped and one single shot only got the head and some of the shoulders originally.
