I sold my 50 mm to my brother (it was a macro lens and I upgraded to the 105 mm macro). Soon after I realised my best shots were taken with the 50, so I knew I had to have one in the repertuaire. So, I acquired the Canon 50mm f/1.2
L a few days ago.
I remember discussing with jfrancho about the difference/benefits between the Canon 1.4 and Sigma 1.4, around the time the sigma came out. I decided to go one level higher.
I was itching to whip it out but had to wait until the weekend. Yesterday I finally had the chance. I decided to go out with true PJ-style, only the lens and camera, no extra toys. That's what I love the most, and I feel pretty confident that it's what I do best.
Lucky me, the Förening festival was in full swing downtown, so photo opportunities were present left and right. The festival is a Finnish-swedish cultural celebration/political rally, so it attracts a lot of different people.
Now a few words about the lens. Owning it is like having a perpetual erection: it's rock hard and you ache inside if you can't point it at something. When I got back home I was stunned. The colors and contrast were something I had never experienced before, only very miniscule tweaks were needed. The sharpness was also better than on any of my other lenses (apparently the 1.4 is sharper but tests show that it lags behind on contrast and color). The colors were so rich I allmost had to turn the saturation DOWN. Solid purchase and highly recommended to anyone if price is not the issue.
Some of the pics on the following set are soft in some places, but it is mainly because of my inability to hold the lens steady and/or subject movement...
The whole set is here:
Förening 2008
Here are my personal favs:
That was M. A. Numminen, his singing is kinda like Bob Dylan only 3 octaves higher and out of tune. Horrible? Fun is the word
Well, and political, obviously.
Mr Numminen was doing a duet with his long time musical partner Pedro Hietanen. I had this conversion in mind when I took the shot. I'm pretty happy with the results.
This you don't see everyday: a middle-eastern guy in Finland sporting stars and stripes listening to music sung in Swedish...
The Porvoo Big Band was the main attraction. They played classic funk/disco [Earth Wind & Fire, etc] (sounded pretty damn good too).
The conductor was a ball of energy (as was the whole band actually).
Just to explain a bit (KellyL once said you should also post the ones that are not perfect). So I was trying to create lead-in line with heads, leading to the basist. But damnation to me, I misfocused on the blonde guy in all the excitement... But I like it anyway.
That's it. Do check out the whole set, and comments are allways welcome