Tag: pugs

  • More Pugs with Nikon Z 50 1.8

    After the pug pictures with the old 50mm 1.4 AFD lens, which made me actually feel things, I decided I want to do more of that, but with a lens that I can actually use the autofocus with. So on Sunday, I got out my Nikon 50mm 1.8 Z lens, which has just been sitting patiently in my camera bag. I don’t use it much because I have been using the 16-50mm 2.8 DX lens a lot; it’s really good for photos that I do at church of the kids, and a lot of the time, that’s the only time I use this camera. So all that to say, I put that lens on and tried to recreate the photos I took the other day with the 50 1.4 AFD. And…I like them! I don’t think I need to get a 50 1.4 at all. However, I’m still looking at 35mm focal length, and I don’t know…I may end up with one of those. The seed has been planted. But I want to do a little more research. Until then, I have some good tools to make some nice pug pictures and that makes me happy.

  • Fun Little Lens: Nikon 50 1.4 AFD

    My 52 Frames challenge this week was Shallow Depth of Field, and extra credit was use 1.4 aperture. Well, this one was one of my favorites! I fell in love with shallow DOF back when I first started really getting into photography, about 25 years ago. (How is that even possible?)

    I don’t have any lenses with a 1.4 aperture, except for an old Nikon 50 1.4 AFD lens that I keep on my Nikon F100 film camera, that hasn’t been used in years. I have an FTZ converter so I can use the older lenses with the newer Z system, so I thought I’d give it a try. I did not realize that that lens will not autofocus with the FTZ/Z50ii combination, but honestly, the Z50ii is such a great camera, it made manually focusing easy. I got the camera ready, got a couple of treats for the pugs, and headed outside before work. The light was nice, and the pugs did an amazing job modeling. There’s hope for Hazel yet! Gary was just awesome. And while I was taking these photos, which may or may not be that great, I felt something. And that’s significant because it’s been a long time since that’s happened. It was almost like euphoria and it carried on throughout the day. I was reminded what I love so much about photography. I love that shallow DOF. I love dog photos using it. I love easy, soft light. I love looking through the camera and seeing something, then looking at the photos on the computer and realizing I actually captured them just like I wanted to. It was good. It was so good that now I’m contemplating how I can do that more often, but with a modern autofocus lens, because let’s face it – I don’t have the greatest vision these days (or ever). New prime lens? New full frame camera? Both? I don’t know. But now that I’ve felt that feeling again, I want to keep on feeling it.