milend wrote:
I need some advice regarding the 35mm and 50mm 1.4 GM lenses. My current lens lineup consists of:
- 24-70mm F2.8 GM2
- 40mm F2.5
- 24-50mm F2.8
The 24-50mm is my current favourite lens because it's relatively lightweight and it covers my most used focal lengths - 28mm, 35mm and 50mm. So it stays on my A7IV all the time.
I find the 40mm redundant because I bought it with the intention of having a lighter weight setup but the package is still not small and not much of a difference between the 24-50mm, so I never use this lens.
The 24-70 is too bulky, so I'm going to sell it.
My use case is simple - photos of my family (we have a newborn baby). I'm looking to add a fast prime and would love to hear from parents who went through the early years of their children - which focal lens worked best for them?
The advantages of the 35mm is that it's more versatile, I can capture more of the environment but it's harder to compose as field of view is wider. On the other hand, the 50mm makes it easier to compose, better suited for portraits but might not be wide enough indoors.
Alternatively, I could just continue using my 24-50mm (which I think will use 90% of the time if I got one of these 1.4 primes) and don't get anything else....Show more →
I have a ton of pictures of my son from when he was a baby and he turns 13 next week and I took some this week. Fortunately, he still is ok with me taking pictures of him. Here is what I have generally found: indoors a fast prime often is very useful because at least in our home the light is often pretty bad. I like using 35mm and it lets you get close which is wonderful when they are younger. I have some with a bit longer focal lengths, and those become more useful as they get older and would prefer you keep your distance. A zoom can be useful when outdoors too. A couple of years ago I took my 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 with my son to the zoo and got really nice portraits with that lens. Almost any lens can be used for portraits with enough light and the right distance. My preference of late has been my A-Mount 135 f/1.8 for portraits, but you will figure that out over time. One last piece of advice. Take lots of pictures, but make sure you don't take pictures some of the time and just be a parent. There is oodles of time for pictures, but I find the moments I cherish most I am just concentrating on my son and and keep the memories in my head. Perhaps that is just me, but when there are definitely times I don't like dividing my time between photography and just being with my son. I am posting a bunch of picture below to show the variety of shots I have gotten over the years.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IIZeiss Distagon T* 1.4/35 ZE lens35mmf/1.41/160s400 ISO0.0 EV
Canon EOS 5D Mark IIZeiss Distagon T* 1.4/35 ZE lens35mmf/2.01/100s3200 ISO0.0 EV
Canon EOS 5D Mark IIZeiss Distagon T* 1.4/35 ZE lens35mmf/2.01/40s100 ISO0.0 EV
Canon EOS 5D Mark IIZeiss Distagon T* 2.8/21 ZE lens21mmf/5.61/200s100 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-7RM2Voigtlander NOKTON 40mm F1.2 Aspherical lens40mmf/2.01/500s100 ISO+0.3 EV
LEICA M10Summilux-M 1:1.4/50 ASPH. lens50mmf/2.01/350s200 ISO0.0 EV
ILCE-9FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS lens200mmf/6.31/50s640 ISO+0.7 EV
ILCE-7RM5135mm F1.8 ZA lens135mmf/2.01/320s1600 ISO0.0 EV
