Snapper123
Well-known member
Hey guys, with my 50mm, I keep struggling with how paper-thin the depth of field is, even if I raise the aperture up to 8 or above, the in focus depth of field doesn't exactly get wider, it just seems to make the blur surrounding less severe. I could understand if I was using this lens for macro purposes, but I'm not, I'm doing tests for subjects that are positioned about 3 or 4 feet from the camera (normal interview distance, for example), and the field just doesn't seem useable. Plus, with video mode, if you back up farther than what the focal length is suited for, everything just gets too low quality because of the video technology, in focus or not.
So what's the solution here? Are there any lenses/focal lengths that naturally give wider focus planes at lower apertures? Obviously for quick indoor interview situations, you need a fairly low aperture (1.8-5.6), but the focus plane on the 50mm is killing me. Now, maybe it'd look better if I was simply testing this on human faces but...as it is, I just don't think the focus plane I'm seeing with my tests would be able to even get a person's cheek thickness in focus before their eyes look blurry. Does a wider focal length like 35mm help with this? Or does a longer focal length like 75mm help? Overall I'm frustrated because hands down, this 100$ 50mm seems to be one of the sharpest lenses made, and I want to use it for much more than I'm seemingly able to.
That's really the sucky thing about having such a low resolution of 1080P, when you have 18MP to play with, it naturally widens the focus plain and makes even the slightly out of focus objects look crystal clear when you view the photograph at a small size. Video is just not forgiving! And if any of these other focal lengths are better, are there any primes you'd recommend? I use the-digital-picture.com to compare any potential choices, and so far I'm quite horrified at how horrible other all other lenses seem to be, especially zoom lenses. Distortion, fade, color aberration, blur, the 50mm just seems to be so free of all that from the website's testing!
So what's the solution here? Are there any lenses/focal lengths that naturally give wider focus planes at lower apertures? Obviously for quick indoor interview situations, you need a fairly low aperture (1.8-5.6), but the focus plane on the 50mm is killing me. Now, maybe it'd look better if I was simply testing this on human faces but...as it is, I just don't think the focus plane I'm seeing with my tests would be able to even get a person's cheek thickness in focus before their eyes look blurry. Does a wider focal length like 35mm help with this? Or does a longer focal length like 75mm help? Overall I'm frustrated because hands down, this 100$ 50mm seems to be one of the sharpest lenses made, and I want to use it for much more than I'm seemingly able to.
That's really the sucky thing about having such a low resolution of 1080P, when you have 18MP to play with, it naturally widens the focus plain and makes even the slightly out of focus objects look crystal clear when you view the photograph at a small size. Video is just not forgiving! And if any of these other focal lengths are better, are there any primes you'd recommend? I use the-digital-picture.com to compare any potential choices, and so far I'm quite horrified at how horrible other all other lenses seem to be, especially zoom lenses. Distortion, fade, color aberration, blur, the 50mm just seems to be so free of all that from the website's testing!
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