David Russell

Missy and I really wanted to get some photographs during the third trimester of her pregnancy. On Sunday we visited Stanton Park, a small patch of green in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I recently purchased the Westcott 6-in-1 42” reflector kit as well as a stand and reflector mount. The stand is actually for lighting—I’m piecing together a Strobist kit—but it doubles decently as a reflector stand.

We decided to do this shoot at the last minute, so I didn’t have time to round up a posse to assist me with the lighting and camera work. In the end, I was able to get a good first go with the reflectors while shooting everything from the tripod remotely using the Nikon ML-L3 remote. I could set up the shot and then play with different lighting approaches as well as hop in with Missy when needed. I am very impressed with the lighting from the reflectors. It is empowering to put the sun behind the subject and still have plenty of natural fill light bouncing back in.

As you can plainly see, we are about 37 weeks into the pregnancy now. That leaves mere days between now and the time baby boy arrives. We are thrilled about meeting him! You can rest assured that he will be well photographed.

I just returned from Penn Camera with a sweet new lens. It’s the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF. What a lens! I’ve only had time to snap a few frames with it, but I already love it.

The power of that wide aperture is astonishing, especially since the majority of my experience in photography has been with the stock Nikon 18-55mm lens (f/3.5-5.6) and the Nikon 55-200mm lens (f/4-5.6)—neither of which have very wide apertures, though they are great lenses. So far, I’ve had to really learn how to supplement the lighting in certain situations. That’s been great because it has forced me to study supplemental lighting techniques, like using strobes. Now, with this 50mm lens, I can open up that wide aperture and shoot most situations using only the available ambient light. (Of course, I’m still studying light—I will always study creative ways to light scenes and subjects. This lens simply prepares me for shooting in diverse situations where supplemental lighting isn’t possible.)

This is also my first experience with a prime lens. Prime (or “fixed") lenses have only one focal length and do not offer the option to zoom to another focal length. It will be an adjustment to not rely on the zoom option. I’ll have to be even more active when composing. But I’ve already learned to compose shots first using a carefully selected focal length—and then use zoom for subtle framing adjustments. A large part of photographic composition is determining what type of perspective you want to create and using the focal length of the lens to adjust the angle. One would assume that with a fixed lens, the perspective is locked to a single variable. While I would say this is probably technically true, I already see differences in the way this lens shoots based on a number of other variables involved in photographic composition, such as subject distance, focus and, of course, aperture. I think the 50mm lens is actually quite dynamic.

Bottom line: This lens is well worth the small price tag. I say with certainty that the 50mm wide-aperture lens should be in every photographer’s bag. It’s versatile and fast.

Here are a two photographs taken with the 50mm lens. Thanks to bicycle and to Jeremy for being great subjects. If you aren’t tracking along on my photostream at Flickr, you should be.

[tags]photography, gear, nikon, 50mm, f/1.8, lens, review[/tags]