What happens when you let a brand new (used) FA50 F1.4 loose in a coffee shop? Way too much big aperture shooting! Lots of cropping, some colour correction, and a little sharpening (I think) was done in digikam.

Not shown are the many, many photos I missed due to misfocus while trying to figure out how to shoot at 1.4. (They all looked sharp on the lcd!)

Tools:
F1.4 1/60 ISO200

Pouring:
F2.4 1/30 ISO 400

Dual tampers:
F1.7 ISO 400

Machine:
F2 1/30 ISO 800

Espresso:
F1.7 1/125 ISO 400

[tigershiok]

great shots, worth all the efforts.

[the swede]

Very nice shots! "pouring" is great!

[Andi Lo]

I like 'pouring' the best as well do you work in the shop?

[ll_coffee_lP]

The FA50/1.4 is an amazing lens...and you've just showed us why! Excellent shots

c[_]

[Dubesor]

i'm so jealous. i want! but they're getting way too expensive.

[wshi]

The second shot is simply awesome. I'd be more into this lens if it weren't for the shoddy build quality... it should be fine on your K200d though. I thought the lens was going to crack in half mounted on my K-x.

[Ash]

Nice work - indeed, poring is a well captured shot.
Look out for WB issues, particularly with #1 and #3.
But good results, thanks for sharing.

[jboyde]

You show proof why you cant count the K200D out. Great shots!

[Mechan1k]

FA50 is very suited to this for sure.

I have found it excellent for BBQ shots ... but coffee shop shots work a treat as well.

[PacificCanuck]

Thanks all! I'm glad some of the photos came out, it was fairly dim. Like Ash mentioned, I had trouble with the colours, out of of camera they came out looking reddish. I corrected them in post, but left more of it in #1 and #3. I kinda like the red-ness in #1 due to the contrast with the blue background, but I'll try correcting #3 more. Thanks for the advice!

The FA50 is a cool lens, I'm enjoying it! I was looking into buying it earlier, but for $400CAN I couldn't justify it. Wandered into a used camera store, and it was there in perfect condition for an even $200.

I don't work in the cafe, but my wife does. So I get 'free access' to wander around when they're closing :-)

Next time I'll try setting up the white balance in camera, and see how that turns out. I've only had my K200D under a year, and am still getting this figured out. Amazing how much digital editing can rescue an image. Exif tags are hugely educational too -- even though 90% of the shots that day were at f1.4-1.7, a high rate of the keepers were above 2.4.

[SanMat]

Well done - the type of shots that lens is made for. One of my favorites as well. The only thing I noticed that I might change/alter is in the shot of the dispenser, there is a lot of brightness coming off the metal piece. If there is a way to darken that just a bit, I'd alter it a bit. That shot is great, but that extra shine is a little distracting to me. The shot of the coffee mug is my favorite of the series.

Great series.

Pete

[PacificCanuck]

Some edits, been thinking about the good suggestions in the post regarding colour balance and glare.

Colour correction on the tamper picture, a big improvement I think:


Likewise on the tools picture. Not sure if this is an improvement or not...


Trying to remove some of the glare in the espresso machine picture as SanMat noted, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do it. I tried selecting the glarey region and lowering the levels just a little... not sure if it helps at all, or if it makes the image artificial.

[Cactisboy]

I like the colors and DOF, nice series. I love that lens

[gawan]

Very pleasing DOF control and nice rich colour palette!