19104 Loc: Philadelphia

The main advantage to this lens is its speed and its inherent shallow depth of field, for available light and the like. its good for environmental type of portraits, but not necessarily for that head and shoulders kind of shot. Big groups no. But you will be continually disappointed if you compare it to a zoom.

So instead of trying to make it perform like a your zoom lens. Start a whole new relationship with this lens and learn its capabilities. you wont be sorry and the time invested will not be wasted

dynaquest1 Loc: Austin, Texas

As recommended, I did try to read between the lines to "find a lucid comment" but had difficulty. Perhaps if we could fix all the spelling, punctuation, grammatical and sentence structure errors in the above rambling mess there might be something lucid contained therein...maybe.

Bram boy Loc: Vancouver Island B.C. Canada

Oh ! Your a spelling teacher also , there is a lot of them here I wonder how many of them can over haul a gas engine , I can . Well may be if I spelled it out in Norsk for you . Or don't you under stand Norwegian.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Troll snakke norsk gjør de ikke?

Bram boy Loc: Vancouver Island B.C. Canada

I also snakke French .

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

And Canadian; but only semi-conversant in American. Bram, how many condos do you own now? Can I rent one?

RealBohemian Loc: Toronto

JEAN just take same pictures(55mm) of your dog with your new 50mm,I bet you you'll see the difference right there, you'll get new background,
crispy,sharper and also more dynamic colors in it .You"ll love it then ..
It is NOT only about weight, find purpose for your lens

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

The 50 isn't called the "nifty fifty" for nothing. It's a great lens to have in your kit. Light, relatively inexpensive, good for low light situations. If I had the extra cash lying around (just bought the new 300) I might even see what the Sigma 50 Art is all about!

sonic Loc: chesterfield UK

I think the fifty is a good lens , The sigma 50 art is supposed to be great .

Jean Chang Loc: Massachusetts

The two pictures of my dogs on the first page of this thread were from the two different lenses. The first was taken at 55mm with my 24-120 zoom, and the one under it was taken with the new 50mm. Yes, I did see a difference-- in fact, the 50mm is really a whole lot crisper. As many have said, though, you do have to be selective in what you use it for.

I was asked to take pictures at a birthday party for about 25 people in a restaurant this past week, so I brought along both lenses, as well as my Sony RX100 P&S. I used all three so I could see the differences. This was during the day, so the room was pretty well lit from the windows, but still needed a flash to eliminate shadows.

For zoom and light weight: The Sony RX100 P & S, obviously. The images were good, but color not as precise as the DSLR, and noise was much more visible. Best shots were those taken close-up. Overall, they were "okay" snapshots.

For zoom, but heavier (still manageable): D810 with the 24-120 did an excellent job of capturing shots if I was too far from the action, and small group shots worked well. Image quality seemed good (to me). But the camera and lens couldn't just be tucked into my purse when I wasn't using it. LOL

Fixed 50mm: Nice light weight, and superb image quality, but limited on getting the shots I wanted. E.g., if people were in front of me, and I wanted a shot of the far table, I could still get it with the 24-120 zoom, but with the 50mm, I naturally had to position myself more carefully, and get around people so I could get closer.

Overall conclusion: I'm glad I had both lenses and the P&S with me. I really liked the results of the 50mm, but now I'm thinking that a wider prime might be good for this type of event--maybe a 35mm or even a 28mm instead of the 50mm.

I had been hoping for a way to get by with taking just ONE lightweight lens, but with the lenses I have, I think I still need to take along something besides the 50mm--at least for larger groups. The 24-85 weighs much less than the 24-120, so that would have been a good option, but I don't have one.

The reporter from our local newspaper was there, and he had the Nikon 24-70. It's a great lens, but has no VR (my poor shaky hands!) and it's far more expensive.

I plan to keep the 50mm, because for smaller groups and all-around shooting, it's really quite nice. Anyway, it was an interesting test for comparisons.

RealBohemian Loc: Toronto

Hmm,wider lens will create distortions ,stick with what you have,fill-up with flash and at day time use higher ISO (No grain up to ISO400 with D810 at day time)that will let you use higher F stop or shutter speed depends what you need or want and you,ll gain DOF,sharpness, play with what you have and use correct lens for different occasions, it is easy,buying will get you nowhere as long as you don't know your capabilities, just use what you have! Create your pictures in your mind BEFORE you'll start shooting, sometime there is time for it, LOL. Shoot on manual all time.
Be more adventurer with your equipment, it is digital remember, nothing to lose, and remember to handle and learn your camera every day, play with it, create set up (choice of four) for different situations ,after all D800-810 is complicated machine and use it correctly with different futures(set up) for different type of photography is important,otherwise you'll have just very expensive P&S camera,take time, try to be very close or i would say intimate with your camera,be comfortable switching setups and make changes AS YOU GO without thinking, just look at pro,they just shoot,but they spend lot of time with their cameras because it take time and practicing to understand your possibilities and cameras. But i thing you know all of this anyway, we just sometime forgetting all this.

ABJanes Loc: Jersey Boy now Virginia

As you work with the DoF Calculator you will build a six sense for planning the shot knowing what will be in focus and what will not be in focus. Scott Kelby and others suggest with fast lenses to compose, move the focus point to where you want it in the frame, press the shutter half way and then all the way. You can always crop & enlarge as needed. Don't be afraid to increase your ISO to help keep your shutter speed up. My D7100 handles ISO 1600 without any problems and your 800 series should be even more forgiving. This is when you have a shallow depth of field issue.

Why I bought a 50MM f1.8

(Download)

Jean Chang Loc: Massachusetts

Yes, my 24-120 does have distortion at the edges if I shoot at 24mm. For most things, it is easy to correct in post, but for shooting people, if I was at 24mm, I'd keep them away from the edges. I also try to leave a little room for cropping on landscapes to get rid of the edges. Above 24mm, it's fine.

Yes, I always shoot raw, and 90% manual. I do have my banks set up for various scenarios--one for birds, one for indoor, etc. One thing I did a long time ago was to memorize the dials on the camera so that I could adjust EV, change aperture, shutter speed, etc., without taking the camera away from my eye. That made things go along a lot faster, especially when shooting those quick little birds.

I'm not planning to go out and buy any more lenses. I was just tossing around in my mind whether I would have been better off with the wider angle while I still have time to return the 50mm. I really do like the 50mm, so I probably won't exchange it.

I agree, the D810 is great in low light, which is one of the reasons I bought it. As you said, it is a feature-rich camera, so there are lots of things to remember.

Now, all that being said, just because I KNOW how to do most of that stuff, it doesn't mean I CAN do it! LOL Sometimes what's in my brain gets lost in translation to my hands. Every single day, I take photos--most of which I delete, but just use them to practice. The other helpful thing is to view them in Nikon ViewNX--both the bad and the good. In ViewNX you can see exactly where the focus point was, as well as all of your settings. I use Lightroom for post processing, but NX is good for analyzing where I did well and where I didn't (most of them end up in the latter category and get deleted! Thank God for digital! Imaging dumping all the bad ones in film?)

Thanks for the post, and the reminders! It always helps to hear these things.

Jean Chang Loc: Massachusetts

That DoF Calculator is great! When I was looking for it, I also came across a neat little app called "Ruler," where you can just point your phone at your subject, and it will tell you how far away it is.

I use BBF, but I agree with Scott Kelby (he's great). With shallow DoF, using the center focus point and then recomposing can throw the focus off, even if only a little.

What a great shot of a little beauty! Gee, I wish I had someone other than my dog around to try that with! Ha ha. Well, my husband should be home soon, so I can practice on him.

Thanks for the tips!