New 35mm DX lens

Nikon announced yesterday a new lens, the AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G. This is Nikon's first prime lens for the DX format. It is positioned as the new "normal" lens since it has the same field of view as a 50mm lens on FX (use that 1.5 factor). I think I might have gotten this instead of the AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D that I did get recently. But then again I might not have, since it is 75% more expensive ($280 vs. $160).

Shooting a Nikon F75

The point of using the Nikon F75 is to use film, and to get a bigger image frame than a DX-format digital SLR. The use of film has its ups and downs, especially when using colour negative film. That's a topic for a future post. The bigger image frame helps when using my 50 mm lens, which becomes a normal lens on the film camera instead of the moderate telephoto it is on my DX DSLR.

The F75 + 50 mm combo works pretty well. Since you will be printing every shot made on the camera, it makes you think more about your composition before triggering the shutter. That is exactly what I need to do since my pictures are usually very uninspired. With digital, I usually just see something that I think might look good in a picture and shoot off a shot or two. I'm guilty of just shooting the picture from where I'm standing instead of moving to a better spot or getting low or high. I need to think more and decide how to make the picture more interesting. I hope using film will force me to do this. The lack of zoom on the 50 mm lens also constrains my creative options and makes me work to get good composition. I don't know if all this forced extra effort is working to improve my pictures. I have developed my first roll of negative film, and there is one good picture in the lot.

My wife is much better at composition than I am. With the D50, I just told her what the buttons do, how to lock focus and re-frame, and to look at the whole frame (either filling it with the subject or watching for stuff you don't want in the picture). She takes much better shots than me. Usually when we're somewhere with lots of good photo opportunities (e.g. botanical gardens or butterfly conservatory), I try to take a bunch of shots and then hand the camera to her to get our really good shots.

Next post I'll talk about my experience developing colour negative film at a mini-lab.

50 mm

So I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to take a common suggestion and buy a 50 mm lens. I got the Nikon AF 50 mm f/1.8 D. It is relatively inexpensive, but quite good. The selling point is the large f/1.8 aperture. This allows for shallow depth of field so you can throw the background out of focus, drawing attention to the subject. It also allows for more pictures in available light, instead of requiring flash.

As you can see it is great for portraits. That's because on a DX camera it is a moderate telephoto lens. I got some good shots but found it strange to use since I was used to my 18-70 zoom.