Again not too many participants this week, but way better than it looked on Saturday and I am really happy about the overall quality - including some nice descriptions about the photos. A good part of my interest in PROJECT 52 lies in the shared exploration process, in the spirit of points 1. and 3. in the Project 52 rules.
What am I looking for in a 'Nifty Fifty' picture? I used to shoot a significant part of my slides with a 50mm f1.8 manual lens before switching to autofocus and digital, though on a `con not an `x. Those lenses are extremely versatile in terms of field of view/perspective, close focusing ability, quality, weight, price ... But my real passion was a 80mm f1.8, a short and fast tele. It simply resembles the focused look at something, which suddenly caught my attention, most naturally. As such, I love my Nifty Fifties for their qualities, but perspective-wise on APS-C even more.
Christian (ChristianRock) Great impulse to capture this, your instinctive composition works really well. I normally prefer black and white shots with smoother tones, but this one benefits from high contrast. The almost blown out faces still show enough about the rowers but equally and almost exclusively let you feel the low angle of light. Nice description too, and an excellent example for the 'focused attention' perspective with slight compression in depth, setting the rowers into even closer relation to each other.
Tom (ramseybuckeye) Fester has all reason to demand pictures of him to be taken. I would have liked one with less of a magenta tint though on his beautiful fur, and whiskers which don't disintegrate into purple and green. Even stopped down just a bit, it would still nicely resemble the theme in many respects: fast lens, close focus, tight focused look.
Noel (noelcm) Yours is stopped down just enough for beautiful separation of the in-focus flower from the super-smooth background. This is well supported by the two-color scheme with uniform transitions of saturation/colorfulness and brightness, from brightest and least saturated yellow in the tips, to the saturated yellow-green transition in the center and the green then dissolving into the dark and again less colorful background. Focus, color and brightness contrast all in tune make the flower really stand out. Which 50mm was this actually?
Tamia A Nifty Fifty doesn't necessarily need anything exciting, and thanks for giving it a try nevertheless. Did you forget your very nifty M50 at home? But of course the picture would not have come out very different - again that 'this cought my eye' look. And colors which make me shiver looking at those fluffed-up birds, brrrr. Nice capture of the cold morning mood.
Rob (RobA_Oz) Wow, that lens has quite some stories to tell by now! Hadn't read about it earlier and of course I could only peek into the enormous thread. Your submission shares some commonality with Noel's, such as corresponding focus, color and brightness transitions and a bi-color scheme, still is very different: I love the asymmetric composition and the velvety sparkle on the petals. The low light angle models them perfectly.
RollsUp Wonderful idea, brilliant execution. It took me a while to recognize the title
literally in the picture. Showcases the detailed and contrasty rendering capabilities of most fifties. Clever lightning, and nice illusion of deep empty space behind it.
scomatic As we have two really masterly composed flower shots already, I'll be generous and dismiss yours and pick the [I}somewhat different[/I] shot instead of disqualifying you
We all love beautiful gear and this really is, mostly, a very fine example. Why didn't you take off that weird out of focus hama converter? The reflection in it inevitably reminds me of the sad moment when I rescued my backpack out of lake Washington just to find my 55-300mm half-filled with water in between the front elements. Looked the same. But, beautiful arrangement of the contrasting red strap, the picture would look totally boring without. Just don't drop it with that open hook! With respect to the nifty fifty, it shows that other brand's conveniently priced ones can render close ups like this really well too.
After writing the comments and thus studying your photos once more in greater detail, it has become even harder to make a choice. So I'll go with what I love most and would instinctively pick - the slightly compressed short-tele, focused attention look of Christian's rowers as the winner, with the two flower shots (no, your's doesn't count scomatic) closely behind.
Similar Threads 
