Tag Archives: Canon

Nifty Fifty

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One lens that should be in everyone’s kit bag, however cheap your camera or however little you want to spend on equipment, is the 50mm lens. A lens they used to call the “nifty fifty”. I have mentioned this lens before.

Many manufacturers have a cheap 50mm lens – Canon and Nikon both have a 50mm f/1.8 version that costs less than $200. This Canon one costs only about $130:

50mm

So it can’t be any good, then?

Wrong. It is very good. On film cameras this used to be called a “standard lens”. Now, on crop factor cameras,  this lens has come into a new life as a portrait lens – on a Canon Rebel, for instance, with a 1.6 crop factor, this is like an 80mm lens. Great for “headshots” portraits.

And the nifty fifty is a fast lens – “fast” being somewhat of a misnomer that just means “has a low f/number”, so it allows lot of light in, and allows for selective depth of field (only part of your picture is sharp).

Which in turn allows you to take pictures like this, using only available window light:

Ivka, 50mm, f/2.0, 200 ISO

Notice that at f/2.0 you get very selective focus. This is not bad – it can be used for effect.

Make sure, however, that if you do this you focus carefully, using one focus point, on the closest eye. Looking at the picture above in detail:

Eyes

If you like that look, and have a window, go get yourself a 50mm lens today.

Annie

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This photo of Annie Leibovitz, the world’s prime celebrity photographer, hosted here, makes me curious:

Leibovitz Lawsuit

I note the following.

  • She shoots Canon. A 1Ds Mark III, I think.
  • But for some reason, has taped over the “Canon” logo on her camera. Why?
  • She uses the same 24-70 f/2.8L lens that I use (and really, really like)
  • But.. no lens hood. Annie.. why not?
  • She shoots with the same Pocketwizards I use.

I do hope she keeps the right to her photos… I suppose we will know tomorrow. As many of you know, she is in financial trouble and has to come up with $24m yesterday, or lose all her photos and her homes.

Know your A:B C

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MVW_9056-1200If you use Canon’s excellent multi-flash E-TTL II, you can get great results with simple speedlites like the 430EX.

But you have to know how the system works. There are a few gotchas – like the sensitivity of the E-TTL system to highlights: one reflecting item in your shot and the entire picture is underexposed. except that reflective item.

One other thing to know is the way you set ratios. This is under-explained in the existing literature, and yet, is very simple once you know it.

You can divide your remote flashes into “groups” A, B, and C. The options for setting up these groups are are A+B+C, A:B, and A:B C.

A+B+C simply means “fire all as one big group”.

A:B means “I have set one or more of my flashes (including the one on the camera, if that is enabled to flash) as group “A”, and one or more flashes as group “B”. I want to fire so that the ratio between group A and B is as set; e.g. if I set 4:1, then the “A” flashes fire four times more brightly than the “B” flashes”. So unlike the Nikon CLS system, which sets “stops with respect to neutral exposure”, the Canon system sets “ratios with respect to each other”. Not difficult: just another way of looking at it.

The one mode that gets most people is A:B C. (Note, just a space between the B and the C). This option simply means “A and B are as before, but any flashes in group “C” will fire at high power and this group will not be taken into account when calculating overall picture exposure”. This means you use group “C” to light up a white background.
Like in the pictures here of my son Jason, which I took in five minutes this morning before work. Including setting it all up. Pictures like this one:

MVW_9055-1200

This picture was shot as follows: on our left, the “A” flash firing through an umbrella. On our right, the “B” flash also firing into an umbrella (you can see that in the reflections in his eye – you do always focus on the eyes, right?). And behind Jason firing at the white wall behind him, the “C” flash, aimed at the wall. All three of these are 430EX speedlites. On the camera, a 580EX II speedlite. This on-camera flash is disabled; it simply drives the three 430s. The system is set to A:B C, with an A:B ratio of 4:1 (the camera left side of the face is four times, i.e. two stops, brighter than the camera right side).

MVW_9055

Simple, really.

If you want to learn more about this subject, Michael teaches Flash at Henry’s School of Imaging, or for more in-depth or customised training, privately, to a wide range of clients.