Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

If you are asking about the dog pic, I just held the camera down near the grass, aimed in his direction and pointed up just a little bit to get the dog and the sky instead of a bunch of grass in the foreground. No tripod.

I did shoot that with the Canon 50/2.5 a lens that costs about $250, but I think that one of the bigger differences in the two images is the lighting that they were shot in, I think that I was in a bit more direct sunlight than you were in your portrait photo, shooting in shaded areas is always a challenge, very difficult to get super sharp pics in the shade. I will say that the I do believe that the 50/2.5 is probably sharper than any of the Canon 50's.

You might have second thoughts about portraits being tack sharp, many women do not find them flattering.

Your image is plenty sharp, if you look closely at the gentleman's face you can see pours and micro lines in his face, his partner not so much because she is standing behind his shoulder and is not quite in the same focal plane. The background is what keeps them from standing out, if there were some sort of contrasting background behind them they would better stand out.

ClydeSelsor Loc: Portage/Burns Harbor, IN. U.S.A.

I have a Canon 1.8 II and it is incredibly sharp. I wonder if those who say otherwise may have had a bad example.

faygo Loc: Tucson, AZ

Good to know. Odd you mention about the shade. Everything I read, says to place your subject in the shade, not direct sunlight. Can you help me understand that? I used my strobe light to ensure no shadows on the face.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Shade is softer light, which can be a really good thing, but my personal experience is that shaded areas produce images with less contrast than those produced in a more direct light. Sometimes to the point that it is difficult to get really sharp images. But I should add your image is actually very sharp, look closely at the gentleman's chin.

tradergeorge Loc: Newport, Kentucky

My mentors say that you can do pretty much anything you want, as long as you expose correctly for your subject and be willing to let the rest be either overexposed or underexposed....That is why we take light readings and then re-compose.....It has always worked for me, but it does come with some interesting "effects" at times...

planepics Loc: St. Louis burbs, but originally Chicago burbs

If I can ask a related question, I still have my AE-1 Program with 3 lenses (including a 50 1.8). What should I expect the optical quality to be vs "modern" lenses? I am taking a photography course at my local community college and will be starting to shoot next week (b/w 5x7s and doing our own developing.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

I agree that proper exposure is the most important aspect of a good photograph, I have a lot of old manual lenses that I use on my DSLR and my adapter is always sending the message to my camera that the light it is seeing is coming from a 50mm f/1.4 lens which fools the camera into making bad exposure decisions. So when using these lenses you are always making exposure adjustments, bottom line is that you quickly learn what a huge difference exposure makes.

tradergeorge Loc: Newport, Kentucky

Most of the DSLR's I have seen have a menu setting where you can tell the camera that you are using a "non-cpu" lens. It should then not try to tell you what lens you are using. In most of these extreme exposure cases, I prefer to go full manual, and not even use the camera for metering.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Hmmm I will have to look at my manual, I generally us AV with the old lenses, I have quite a few M42 lenses, What I have noticed on most that as you stop the lens down you have to make negative exposure adjustments. It is not that big of a deal if you are paying attention to what you are doing, my adapter tells the camera that I am shooting a 50/1.4, I guess it has to tell it something for the focus confirm to work, the focus confirm is a big help with these new lenses. I miss the old split screens, you can still get them but they are quite costly, and after a while you get used to focusing the old lenses, the confirm chirp will tell you that you are pretty much where you need to be and then you just twirk it. The images below have definitely been processed but the first one was taken with an old Takumar 50/1.4 at f/2 and the second one was taken with a Sears 55mm f/1.4 at f/2.8. Both wonderful old lenses.... I actually liked the Sears lens as much as the Taks.