Originally posted by normhead I don't include candids and street photography in portraiture. Event photography is entirely different.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. For me, portraiture is a subject matter category -- one that focuses on the essence of a person or people. Other subject matter categories might include architecture, landscape, birds, flowers, insects, etc.
Categories such as street, candid, studio, event, or time-lapse are largely orthogonal to the subject matter categories and refer more to conditions under which the photos are made. (We need a thread for street-bird photography with titles such as " A Smidgeon of Pigeon" or "Buddy, Can You Sparrow Dime?"
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Originally posted by normhead There are 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16 and 22 I'd consider useful f-stops. There's little you can do at ƒ1.4 you can' do with ƒ2. There's little you can do at ƒ22 you can't do better at ƒ16.
Agreed, there is little that you can do at one f-stop that you can't do at the adjacent higher or lower f-stops. And yet sometimes f/1.4 does look better than f/2 just as sometimes f/22 looks better than f/16 despite the diffraction.
Originally posted by normhead If ƒ1.4 was cheap, I could see this thinking. But take the added cost to ƒ1.4 and the possible benefit, for most of us the benefit isn't worth the cost. I have my DA* 55 1.4 and do a search on my images, and I have 1 keeper taken at 1.4 out of 1200 keepers. I bought the lens because I broke my FA 50 1.7, and wanted something in the for range, and got it at a good price. But honestly, the picture I have that couldn't have been taken with another FA 50 was a test mage, just to see what it could do. Given the penalties in size and weight with ƒ1.4 lenses this is something I'd give serious thought before going down that road.
Cheap is relative. Averaged over a 10 year period of use, the new DFA* 85/1.4 costs only $4 a week -- that's one latte a week. Compared to boats, motorcycles, and RVs, photography is a cheap hobby even if one occasionally buys a high-end lens. Plus there are some 47 million people in this world with over a million dollars, so an 85/1.4 is quite affordable to the affluent hobbyist.
As for how many keepers one gets at f/1.4, that depends on the photographer and how much they enjoy (or need) the shallow DoF look for the images that like or are paid to make. Your rate was less than 1 in a thousand so f/1.4 probably makes little sense for how/what you take pictures of. For another person, f/1.4 might dominate their favorite keeper list.
F/1.4 could be a great "single-in" challenge -- finding good images that really do look best at f/1.4.
Originally posted by normhead 1.4 lenses are not "general photography" items. If you need them you need them, but for most people, they are unnecessary. Unless like I did you need a 50 ish or 85ish lens and you find something at a great price, most will find better places to spend limited funds. Whenever I'm having trouble fitting the 55 in the bag, I wish I'd bought another FA 50 1.7. It's far from a given that you will ever make us of a 1.4 lens even if you buy it. I really like the DA*55 1.4, but if was half the size at ƒ2, it would make very little difference to how I use it, and to my images.
"General photography".... LOL! Don't most photographers have specific subjects that are best shot at specific focal lengths with specific lenses?
I'm not even sure what lens would qualify. I suppose it would be something like the mild-wide-angle lenses (say 30-35 mm equivalent) favored by phones and old fixed focal length point-n-shoot cameras. Or maybe a kit lens zoom counts? At least 90% of the lenses in camera makers' catalogs would not be "general photography" because they are too wide, too long, too arcane, or too expensive. People buy interchangeable lens cameras because they don't do general photography, they do a diverse range of specific photography.