Saturday, June 21, 2014

Old Prime

Re-discovering an old prime lens recently, I have been enjoying the speed, brightness, and clarity it brings. A number of years ago from eBay, I purchased an old 85mm prime lens from the old olympus film series. Instead of paying more than $800 for a high-quality new lens, I was able to get an equivalent lens in excellent condition for less than a third of the price. Portraiture is an area of photography that I am keen to practise and this lens has recently been a great catalyst for me to do so.

Benefits for using good quality prime lenses:

- Great image clarity
- More compact design (i.e. less intrusive and intimidating for human subjects AND lightweight)
- Nice render of light with improved dynamic range and pleasing bokeh
- Noticeable reduction in minimum focusing distance

Below is an example shot of my son taken this morning. Light is always a significant factor to any image and yet you can see how the lens maintains such great detail in areas of focus. Being limited to manual focus (due to lack of electronic connection - old to new technology), it has also been a great exercise to practise focusing quickly; to me, fast and precise manual focusing is still far more efficient and practical, particularly in low light conditions.









Time-Saver! 
Aside from a couple of slight adjustments, this was all achieved without the need for photoshop, meaning less time on the computer. Unless you particularly love editing, this is a big win. 



Good light control including lens choice is a critical aspect in photography. Megapixels alone are far overrated - 9/10 times the quality you can get with less than 5MP on a reasonably good sensor with good light and glass will exceed your average 20MP with poorly controlled light. In general, I have been very pleased with this lens and excited about the fresh possibilities that it will bring to my photography.

Key point: Lens choice is an important part of the photographic process and heavily influences the look of your final image.