Lat night I went dining with some friends at a small Turkish restaurant in Tirana. As soon as I stepped in I thought to myself why didn't I bring the k100d? I had the fuji f20 p&s, which is an excellent camera, but I wanted to practice with the super takumar 50/1.4.

I chose the salads from the window (very very tasty salads I must say), sat at the table and started enjoying the ambient. Well I couldn't resist anymore, so I brought out my f20. Took a couple of shots, showing my buddies the difference between a flash shot at iso 100 and iso 800. They loved the iso 800 shot, which didn't darken the warm background. Needless to say, I couldn't resist anymore, so I went to my car, grabbed the camera, swapped the 28-200mm tamron for the takumar, and started shooting.

I'm not an experienced photographer, thus using a fully manual lens is quite a challenge.

Had to decide on exposure. ISO had to be set to 1600 as the lights were quite dim.

Had to decide between apertures. The people I was going to take photos of were sitting either in front of me across the table, or, a friend of mine was sitting to my left side. So quite close for 50mm lens on a cropped sensor. Being this close, meant that the DOF would be very shallow, but had to keep a wide aperture to have acceptable shutter speeds.

Then the focusing. The lens wide open is quite bright, but manual focusing is still a challenge with no split image screen (which is on the way from the far east China), and such a shallow DOF.

After that came the dreaded white balance. Tungsten seemed to work well, but after some photos I tried to set the white balance manually using the table covering, which was white, and I liked the white balance better. Could have used raw and should have done it, but I don't know why I chose to shoot jpg.

Here's the series:





















Obviously C&C are welcomed!

Thanks for looking .

Deni

[Kingsofronin]

out of focus.

[Deni]

out of focus.

I appreciate your precise opinion!

[Nixarma]

Deni,

You like this lens, eh? Looks like you had a good time... the wine appears to have really gotten to your friend in 5 and 6, hahaha!

A few things:

1. The lens has low contrast at f/1.4. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it enables one to achieve some surreal effects under the right lighting conditions. The first photograph hints at this.

All is not lost. Play with the curves and layer blend effects in Photoshop. I can almost guarantee that you will obtain a more dynamic result without having to go over the top. And sometimes... the low contrast accentuates the mood.

2. The lens has pretty nice bokeh. However, very busy backgrounds (such as the decor in this restaurant) can result in distracting elements even if the out-of-focus rendering is otherwise pleasing.

3. Composition: I believe the first 8 photographs can be strengthened by cropping to the left/right. Also, the backrests of the chairs are kinda distracting, they are neither as blurred as the background, nor as sharp as the subjects. The better photographs in this set are the ones that do not have them visible.

I really like the last one... if there was decisive focus on either the glass of wine or your friend, the photograph would have been killer. I like the repeating reds in the photo... wine, shirt, walls... very nice. Some photoshop trickery might just make this great

Oh, and remember, if the color balance is annoying you, conver to B&W (if you like B&W that is)... a lot is forgiven there and sometimes you can end up with a much stronger image.

Hope this helps,
Nikhil

[Deni]

Hi Nikhil!

In deed I'm really enjoying the lens. Modding a bit the m42 to K mount adapter made changing lenses very easy and fast so I'm liking the takumar even more .

So far I like a lot the quality of the lens, can't even recognize the low contrast you're talking about .

I usually use my camera in situations where composition is very difficult, i.e. these examples when the subject is just across the table, so not a lot of space between us. I have to be happy with what I can get .

Also focusing is quite challenging because like in these photos, the ambient was very dimly lit and I didn't want to use the flash as I wouldn't have been able to take more than a couple of photos before my buddies being pissed about the flash. Having to use wide apertures to allow more light and being so close to the subject, the in focus DOF is very very shallow, thus it's quite unforgiving.

I like the last 2 photos as well, but I didn't get the focus I wanted to, as I focused on the eyes, then recomposed the photo, obviously loosing my focus because of the narrow focus (if i focus on the face, generally on the nose, the eyes will be out of focus, that's how narrow the focus is).

[Nixarma]

I can quite imagine how difficult focusing in such a situation was. When I take photographs at concerts (esp. the metal gigs) I end up having to shoot headbanging musicians at shutter speeds of 1/4 to 1/20s at ISO 1600. Manual focus in that kind of situation can be very frustrating and I appreciate that.

However, with time and a few gigs, I have developed an instinct for manually focusing these fast lenses and there's no reason why you will not. It's just part of the learning process.

Re: my remarks about composition... I meant that you could alter the composition, essentially by cropping, in Photoshop or whatever photo-editing software you are currently using.

Nice work!
Nikhil

[Deni]

However, with time and a few gigs, I have developed an instinct for manually focusing these fast lenses and there's no reason why you will not. It's just part of the learning process.

The good thing is that unlike many other "learning processes", i.e. school , I'm liking this one . One thing I recognized though is that even if the camera gives the focus check blip, it's still a hit and miss, whereas with the af lenses I have the af is dead on. But I think it has to do more with DOF as the fastest af lens is the kit lens at f/3.5.

Re: my remarks about composition... I meant that you could alter the composition, essentially by cropping, in Photoshop or whatever photo-editing software you are currently using.

I feel stupid now . Yes indeed, I could have used photoshop to crop them. Didn't think of it .

Thanks again for the suggestions!

Deni