Originally posted by rawr Irrespective of the lens, what's with the current mania for shooting wide-open, in broad daylight no less? It just invites problems with razor thin DOF, especially with a 135 prime at any close distance.
It's not a sin to use smaller apertures. One shouldn't feel guilty about using f5.6 or above on a f2.8 lens.
Actually, I agree. Most of the time I shoot at f4 to f8. I didn't even notice the DA* 50-135 was soft at first because I didn't even use it at f2.8.
And when I eventually noticed it, I blamed the softness on user error. It was only when I noticed the softness was ALWAYS there, even at 1/4000 s, that I started suspecting maybe it wasn't just me.
But in answer to your question, I'm not sure about the "mania" and I can't speak for others, but these photos were for me practising accurate manual focus on the A135.
In fact, my album on Facebook from which these photos were selected from is called "Manual Focusing on the A135mm at f2.8" - I basically name albums after a specific technique that I'm trying to work on on a particular day. I have albums called Macro, HDR, etc.