I might be getting into photography.

I haven't blogged for a long time, so here it is for a comeback. What I've been up to, nothing much. I guess the people who are reading this, will know me (through Facebook) and know what I've not been doing anything, so lets just keep to that. But I've been taking my camera out a lot lately and I got myself a new lens, the Nikon AI 50mm.

Why this lens? Well it was the cheapest on eBay, it was either a this or the 35mm version.  So when it came to getting it, I went for the cheaper option.  

The lens is a manual focus, so the AF (auto focus) mode on my Canon EOS 60D WOULD NOT work.  My intent for getting an old (circa late 1970s-1980s) Nikon lens is because 1) they are quality built 2) it gives that organic image quality and 3) it will generally be used for video.  If you look at Cinema lenses from Cooke, Arri and Zeiss, the aperture control can be found on the lens.  This attracted me to the old Nikon lens, as the aperture control is featured on the lens.   Why is this important?  Well, to me it will give me some practice, just so when I upgrade to using cine lenses, I don't want to get into the habit in changing the aperture within the camera.  

However I've haven't been doing a lot of video/filming work with this lens, so I've been taking a lot of picture with it.  Taking photos at first with this lens is very tricky and that is because of the manual focus.  Unlike 35mm film SLR cameras, there is no focus alignment, so focusing is really hard.  What I did, is I take a picture each with a different focus and pick the best one.  Luckily we live in a day of digital technology, so if you don't like a picture, you can always get rid of it straight away.  With the manual focus, it made me more patient on taking a the shot.  Sure it's hard, but it's challenging and the result you get afterwards is priceless.  Now if you want to do photography professionally, this is not the lens for the job.  It's best to get an AF lens, because in this day and age, speed and quality go hand to hand and you wouldn't get any of that with this lens.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong).  If you want use this lens as a professional videographer, why not?  AF is not essential in video.  

Why am I taking photos?  It's because it helps think about the image instead of just taking it, especially when it comes down to cinematography.  The 50mm helps a lot in taking your time and thinking about the image, as I had to adapt with the lens' limitations. 

I think these limitations are a good thing, as it restricts you and you are able to think on your feet and get creative.

With this lens, the organic feel to the image quality is such a big factor.  I found the image with this lens to be much softer than my kit lens I have at f/5.6 (Canon EF-S 18-105mm)

In the future with my blog posts, I will be doing more photography, this is because photography is right now is accessible for me than filming at the moment.  But don't get me wrong, I will be posting about stuff filmmaking when I get the chance to.  

Watch out for my next post, I will be talking a lot more about photography and an exercise that you can participate.

Until next time....