Having an f/1.4 lens and not using it wide open ...

Comment directed at me and it's kind of sticking in my craw, if you know what I mean. The off-the-cuff comment was something like, 'why would you have an f/1.4 lens if you're not intending to shoot wide open with it?'

What am I not getting here? Yeah, I have a couple of f/1.4 lenses and an f/2 lens and rarely if EVER see a need to shoot below f/2.

Is it because I don't do macro or something? Might this be a case of I don't know what I don't know?

dave

I don't simply because the CA bothers me way too much. They do however make a great lens when you NEED the 1.4 just to get the shot.

You're probably just smart enough to stop down as required for the depth of field you need instead of running wide open all the time because you don't know any better. lol

If I had a lens that fast it would be because of the quality of the glass, not for my need to shoot at 1.4. I dont know that 1.4 would give me enough depth of field anyway so I doubt I would use it much.

snyderman wrote in post #12120666
Comment directed at me and it's kind of sticking in my craw, if you know what I mean. The off-the-cuff comment was something like, 'why would you have an f/1.4 lens if you're not intending to shoot wide open with it?'

What am I not getting here? Yeah, I have a couple of f/1.4 lenses and an f/2 lens and rarely if EVER see a need to shoot below f/2.

Is it because I don't do macro or something? Might this be a case of I don't know what I don't know?

dave

Don't worry about it , shoot at what you think is best. Macro has nothing to do with it either. Most macros are stopped down also.

Me love some 85L wide open... Stopped down, it just gets eye-bleeding sharp. So it works well on both ends

A lot of the CA can be corrected in Post. Both DPP and Photoshop can deal with it using their lens profiles correction. Just shoot and fix it afterwards. It's only really objectionable on high contrast boundaries anyway.

When I first got my 50mm 1.4 I couldn't shoot in anything other than 1.4, then I started checking out the pics. Yeah, it looks sharp as a knife stopped down to 2.8! Oh, and you get both sides of the face on a 3/4 view!

I never understood those comments either...I look at the wide aperture as...I shouldn't say a last resort, but more of 1 less limitation...hope y'all understand lol

snyderman wrote in post #12120666
What am I not getting here? Yeah, I have a couple of f/1.4 lenses and an f/2 lens and rarely if EVER see a need to shoot below f/2.

Regardless of what aperture you are using for your images the lens will be f/1.4 during all the other times while you are looking through the viewfinder, focussing, etc. Besides, even if you only ever really need it once a year, at least you will have it that one time each year.

You obviously don't do macro. Depth of field gets smaller as the distance gets shorter and at macro distance the depth of field is razor thin even at very small apertures. f/1.4 at macro distance would give a depth of field that is literally razor thin.

You can always say to them...." your lens goes to f22....why don't you use that"!!!

Canon 50mm 1.4 @ 2.0 on a ff is a sweet spot of dof and sharpness.
Same with the 85mm 1.8 @ 2.8.

I tend to shoot most of my shots at those apertures although if I had the 135L I would always be shooting at 2.0

Well, if you use it at f2.8 or smaller apertures, why not use a fast zoom, yeah it's bigger, but you have much more flexibility.

The sharpness on the 50mm Lenses is great and hard to reproduce in a zoom. It also helps me personally using the prime over my zooms because I'm forced to consider the shot more.

I just shot an event this past weekend with my 35L, and I think I only used it wide open a handful of times... reason? DOF. especially group shots, where I needed 2.8 or above to get the majority of people in good focus, so the majority of the time I was shooting 2.2-2.8. still amazingly sharp on the 35L though, so it was all good.