Sunday, February 19, 2017

The 35mm Documentary Project

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If you follow along with my photography posts, you'll know that I'm mainly a prime lens (fixed focal length) user and I currently have a gap in my focal length coverage.  My walk around lens has been a 50mm and then I have a wide angle lens of 14-24mm.  What's funny with that lens is I'm always forgetting it's a zoom lens because I'm so accustomed to using a prime lens.  So anyway, I've been debating for a really, really long time over what lens to add to my collection to fill in the gap between 24 and 50mm.  I've also thought about whether or not I actually need coverage in that area or am I just drooling over new equipment, a common problem with photographers.  I did decide that yes, I need a lens wider than 50mm but not as wide as 24mm.

For some reason, I was focused/obsessed with the Sigma Art 20mm but that wouldn't make sense considering I already have a 14-24mm lens.  A photographer I follow had owned both a 35mm and a 50mm but stated that they were too much alike and he didn't feel the need for both.  I own a 35mm lens but it's for a crop sensor camera and my camera now is full frame, which is why I no longer use this particular lens.  Last week, I dusted off that 35mm lens and popped it on my D750 to see what would happen.  I was curious about what would fit in the frame as well as how images from a crop sensor lens on a full frame camera would turn out.

The only noticeable image quality was heavy vignetting - darkening in the corners, which is super visible in the photo below.

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This is partly why I converted all the images above to black and white.  I also thought it gave them a documentary type look because, apparently, I was in a documentary type of mood.  I didn't even mean to take all those photos.

Here's a comparison between my 35mm and 50mm lenses.  I had looked up comparisons online and found them to be similar but I really wanted to see the difference between the two in my own space.  Interestingly enough, I also found a photography discussion online regarding whether or not there is a noticeable difference between 35mm and 50mm and most agreed that there is.

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50mm

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35mm

(Both photos were taken from the same exact spot.  No edits, straight out of the camera.)

I'm back on the 35mm train!  (But a full frame one.)  (I do still love that 50mm lens, but sometimes it is just too tight indoors.)


Equipment Details
Camera:  Nikon D750 (full frame)
Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens (crop sensor) - a super affordable prime lens considering the quality
Sigma Art 50mm f/1.4 lens (full frame)



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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Sarah.... Great photos.... I have a 55mm prime and a 35mm prime both for full frame and i think that there's a big difference between the two, while i do love my 55mm prime it's super sharp and has amazing bokeh, you're right sometimes its just not wide enough and thats when I get the 35mm prime, I have looked at a 24mm but im not sure if i would use it enough so im happy with my 85,55 and 35mm primes and feel like I have all i need with just those three lenses.... In short i see a big difference between the two :)

Bree at Clarity Defined said...

What do you use for editing? LR has a lens correction function in it. I have no idea if/how it would work with a crop-sensor lens on a full-frame camera, but it did a great job for me with a lens that had heavy vignetting/distortion when I shot wide open. May be worth looking into?

Sarah said...

Adrian - thanks for the comment! It's to good to hear from someone who uses both a 35 and a 50.

Bree - i don't use LR but I did find a blog post from a photographer who used LR to edit the vignetting caused by crop lens on full frame. It didn't remove all of it but helped.

Bree at Clarity Defined said...

That's good to know (even if it isn't helpful to you since you're not using LR).

I will say, I started using LR a couple years ago when I got a new computer and had to switch to cloud-based Adobe as a result and I could not be happier. I still go into PS for some edits, but do the majority of my edits in LR and it's so much faster.