This is one of my two fixed (prime) lenses, the other being my macro, and because of the relatively wide aperture it is my low-light lens if I anticipate not being able to use flash much. It's also a very small and flat lens to have on the camera (the smallest in my personal experience, although Pentax have since gone one better), which makes for ease of handling. I keep a sacrificial 49mm UV filter screwed onto the front at all times, to catch anything which might be thrown up by the wheels of passing cars or careless small children smearing grubby fingers everywhere, and have since replaced the unusual screw-on lens-cap with a more easily replaced standard-type after-market spring cap.
Okay, let's see what it can do. I set to aperture priority at ISO 200, and shot with the aperture all the way open and all the way closed. I centred the reticle in the viewfinder on the large building at the top of the hill for both shots, but I suspect the spot focus was reading the sky somewhere and it shows.
( Cut for photos/length; all worksafe. )
...and thus as a side benefit, we have a lesson in why you use tight f-stops for landscape photography. You might be able to see that despite my focus point being in the distance, the wheels of the cars in the car park are now much more in focus. Go back and look at the first shot, and you'll see what I mean. (It goes without saying that if I were doing this as a formal project, I'd use a tripod and cable release.) Conversely, if I want to isolate a subject, I'll be sure to crank the thing wide open for minimum depth of field (one of the benefits of this lens) and get close.
In this particular case, I might have done well to overexpose by a stop or so, given the general greyness of the weather.
If I were buying this lens again, I might go for the slimline pancake-flat version. The only reason I didn't was that I didn't then know it existed (and it may not have existed when I bought this one; I'm not exactly sure).
Okay, let's see what it can do. I set to aperture priority at ISO 200, and shot with the aperture all the way open and all the way closed. I centred the reticle in the viewfinder on the large building at the top of the hill for both shots, but I suspect the spot focus was reading the sky somewhere and it shows.
( Cut for photos/length; all worksafe. )
...and thus as a side benefit, we have a lesson in why you use tight f-stops for landscape photography. You might be able to see that despite my focus point being in the distance, the wheels of the cars in the car park are now much more in focus. Go back and look at the first shot, and you'll see what I mean. (It goes without saying that if I were doing this as a formal project, I'd use a tripod and cable release.) Conversely, if I want to isolate a subject, I'll be sure to crank the thing wide open for minimum depth of field (one of the benefits of this lens) and get close.
In this particular case, I might have done well to overexpose by a stop or so, given the general greyness of the weather.
If I were buying this lens again, I might go for the slimline pancake-flat version. The only reason I didn't was that I didn't then know it existed (and it may not have existed when I bought this one; I'm not exactly sure).
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