Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 "Plastic Fantastic"

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens is also known as the "Plastic Fantastic" or the "Nifty Fifty". It is a 50 mm prime lens, which means that it's 50 mm and that's it. There is no zoom or whatsoever.

The lens is very light, as its body is mainly made out of plastic and that's what makes this lens so cheap. It's available for around 100 Euro.

The best part is the light sensitivity. It's an f/1.8 lens so you get an enourmous amount of value for your money (Normaly, the more light sensitive a lens is, the more expensive it gets). This lens simply should be in every camera bag containing a Canon DSLR (Nikon also has an equivalent, which is just a bit more expensive if I'm not mistaken.)

Because of this light sensitivity factor, this lens can be used to shoot great photo's when there's not a lot of light to work with. But what's even better: you can make photo's with a very shallow depth of field. What this means is that you can make a photo of which only a very small area is in focus. Personally, I love these kind of images. It is a great way to draw the viewers attention to a certain part of the photo.

I could write much more about this fantastic piece of plastic, but a few examples probably say a lot more :-)

f/2.0

f/2.0

f/2.0

f/2.0

Flash experiments

External Flash, possibly even harder to use than a DSLR itself, at least if you want correctly lit photo's. Therefore it is wise to experiment with it as much as possible. To perform some experiments, I made a small Do-It-Yourself studio in the garage. For now, let's call it 'Studio Le Garage' :-)

Studio "Le Garage"

So what can we find in "Le Garage"? Of course we have a nice (cheap :-) ) tripod with the DSLR on top of it. On the right there is the flash on a not-so-professional stand, with on the floor a even less professional diffuser (an Ikea storage box). We also have a reflector (at the foot of the tripod in the photo) which is a piece of white foam board that I found in the back of a painting that we bought years ago (never throw anything away ;-) ) As a background I use a black piece of fabric that I bought for 2 Euro per meter at the market.
The flash is a Canon Speedlite 430EX II that is remotely triggered by the Canon 600D (wireless).

For my saturday morning experiment, I wanted to create some low-key (dark) photo's.

Experment 1

As a first flash experiment I made a self portret. A low key photo with some pretty harsh shadows. The flash was not on full power mode and not diffused. Also, no reflector was used to create fill light.

Experiment 2

For the second experiment, I diffused the flash using the Ikea-storage-box-diffuser. On the other side of my face I used the reflector which I held myself, just outside the frame. As you can see, the shadows are much softer.

Experiment 3

Next experiment: always nice to use a model so that more photo's can be made using different settings and setups. Unfortunately I only made a few photo's when the flash batteries went dead :-) For this photo, the same setup was used as experiment 2.

Experiment 4

This photo was not made in "Le Garage" but in the living room during a bright day! The background (just normal living room stuff) was darkened out by increasing the apperture (f/32) so that hardly any light reaches the sensor. The light that is vissible in the photo is created by the off camera flash. Using this method, low key photo's can be made without having a special dark background, everywhere and every time of the day.

Getting creative

Are you experiencing one of those boring sunday afternoons, you don't know what to do, or you feel like shooting some nice photo's but you want to create something 'different'? Then it's time to get creative! So get your gear together and go for it!

Below the example photo (Featuring 'Franky Potter') you'll find a youtube collection from the people at DigitalRev, with great creative ideas that you can try out yourself.

Levitation Photography example

How to do Smoke Photography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld_ervQfKyM

How to do Levitation Photography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaSH0d60Zso

Cool Long Exposure Photography Ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T24_uq0AY6o

How to: Flash Photography - Bikini Powder Girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21hhPuXU0Ls

"Stuck at Home" Photo Ideas #1: Tiny People Photos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8u0QKjf65Q

"Stuck at Home" Photo Ideas #2: How to Shoot a Water Curtain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx-pPHaJp60

"Stuck at Home" Photo Idea #3: How to Shoot Freelensing Photos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WerEA1BZRYA

Bokeh

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens, F-stop: 3.5

When using a small compact camera in a 'standard' way, most of the time much of the foto is in focus. This is because the sensor of such a camera is small, and mostly, the lens is as well.
With a DSLR, things are very different. Because of the bigger sensor and bigger lenses with a larger aperture, a much shallower 'depth of field' can be created. In other words: a very small part of the image, for instance your subject, can be in focus, while the rest is blurry. This method can be used to draw the viewers attention to the subject. Now, the quality of these out-of-focus areas (especially light points) is described as 'Bokeh'. As you can see in the photo on the right, Hellen is nicely in focus while the Christmas tree is blurry and has become a cool 'Bokeh-tree' in the background :-)
To create a nice bokeh-effect you need a lens with a large aperture, for instance the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. The bokeh photo's in this blog were made with one of these. A smaller F-number means a larger aperture, or larger 'opening' of the lens, and this results in a shallower depth of field (so more blurry-ness in the background...).

If there is no lens available with a low F-number, you can get the same result (more or less) with a zoom lens. However, in order to get the effect you have to zoom in on your subject that is relatively close to the lens while the background needs to be pretty far away. Using this method you can even get the effect with a simple kitlens.

Christmas tree bokeh filter construction

Bokeh filter

Christmas tree shaped bokeh

The shape of the bokeh is highly dependant on the construction of your lens. However, there is a fairly simple way to influence this. With a black, dark or non translucent piece of paper, a sharp knife and some sticky tape you can make your own bokeh-filter. Just cut out the desired shape from the black paper, for instance a christmas tree. Then fold the paper is such a way that you can use it as a lens cover. Put this cover over your lens and shoot. Truth be told, the resulted image shown here isn't the best photo possible. It was a quick 'n dirty test of the bokeh-filter principle, and for such a small experiment it was a quite successful one. As you can see the bokeh-lights now have the shape of tiny Christmas trees.

On the web, you will find a lot of discussion about what good/poor bokeh really is. I think it's about your personal taste and what you are trying to get. So go ahead and shoot some 'Bokehlicious' photo's!

Info from the Internet

The 'allmighty' Internet, your source for everything you always wanted to know about anything, including photography of course. The search for info probably starts with the big question 'what DSLR is the one for me?', followed by 'ok, I got my basic stuff, what else do I want/need'.

And what about 'I probably know the basics, but I want to do more, much more'. Of course, you could sign up for a course or study (I'm still thinking of doing the basic course at the FotoVakSchool (NL) myself), but there is also so much to learn from the Internet: YouTube, Blogs, FaceBook and all the rest!

I found some pretty interesting stuff that I would like to share with you, starting with one of my favourite YouTube channels:

DigitalRevTV

http://www.youtube.com/user/DigitalRevCom

Often compared to Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Kai Wong presents this YouTube show with a lot of humor (together with Lok C. and Alamby). In this channel you can find equipment reviews (from the latest camera's to the best camera bags, and everything in between), camera-stress-tests (pretty hilarious), what to do on a rainy sunday afternoon, and what happens if a professional photographer has to shoot with a toy camera.
Also, the big question is answered: '5 Reasons why you need a 50 mm lens'. (But actually you don't need a reason, really. Just go and get one now! ;-) )
It's realy very entertaining, but still very informative and educational as well! If you happen to like Top Gear, and are also into photography, this one is a 'must see' I would say :-)


Jeff Cable

http://jeffcable.com/

I while ago, I stumbled upon a youtube video about 'how to make money with photography' which of course sounded very interesting to me! :-) In this video, that lasts more than 1,5 hours, this guy called Jeff Cable tells about his work as a professional photographer. And while doing so, he shares some of his 'secrets' about how to stand out of the crowd as a photographer. Some of these ideas are as simple as they are brilliant! One quote from Jeff in this video really got to me:
"We're historians, not photographers..."
After a bit of further investigation, I learned that Jeff Cable is a professional photographer from San Fransisco that does weddings, bar mizvahs, but also took some amazing images during the Olympics of 2008, 2010 and 2012. On the web you can find several video's, articles, a facebook page and what not about Jeff Cable. But one of the coolest things is his blog (one of his tips from the video, that actually inspired me to start one myself). In this blog he shares his experiences as a photographer. Wether it's a family trip or 'on the job', Jeff always has something interesting to share!


Karl Taylor

http://www.karltaylorphotography.co.uk/

A colleague of mine (thanks Sarah) pointed me out to the website of Karl Taylor. If you register on his website, you get a free mini-course! Every day a new video is unlocked (19 of them). Karl shows you the basics about camera settings, light, filters, flash, photoshop, you name it. From this course I got the idea to buy myself a slingbag when my first camera bag became too small. Also, I purchased a Cokin filter set that fits on all my lenses, also inspired by Karl's videos.
If you like the mini course, there's more from Karl Taylor: He has several great courses on dvd that you can buy from his webshop.


Facebook group: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Fan Club

http://www.facebook.com/groups/55481042944/

As an owner of the 'Plastic Fantastic' or 'Nifty Fifty' or just 'Canon EF 50mm f/1.8' lens, I was looking for photo's that fellow owners created. There's plenty of examples to find on the net, and maybe also many that are much better than this one, but still I like it: The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Fan Club! You don't get an immense flood of images every day, but there are some really nice photographs in there, some of which are very inspirational.
I sometimes try to re-create some of the gems that I find there, which I find very educational.


Of course, this is a very small selection of what is out there to find. But these are my personal favourites. Hope you like them as well :-)

A new Hobby

In 2012, I decided it was time to start with a new fresh hobby. For a while already my interest shifted from video to photography, so I decided to buy a Canon  EOS 600D with the EF-S 18-55mm kitlens, and a small camera bag with room for an extra lens (from which I wasn't sure I would ever buy) or my Sony HDV camcorder. This all went fine for about 2 months, then the camera bag became too small! The first extra lens was the 'Plastic Fantastic' Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, and the second a nice Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD. The 'old-new' camera bag had to make place for a bigger model, the Vanguard UP-Rise 43 Slingbag, which could hold my entire kit, including the camcorder... Until... Until I bought a Cokin filter set, and a Canon Speedlite 430 EX II. But that's ok if I leave the camcorder out of the equation, which is fine. So everything still fits... for now... :-)

Canon workshop

One of the things that 'excelerated' the 'photographic fire' was the 1-day digital photography workshop that Canon provided (for 25 Euro's) with the purchase of the camera. So I went to the 'FotoVakSchool' on a saturday and had a great time with some fellow enthusiasts (and all fresh owners of 1100D, 550D or 600D camera's). The (basic) in's and out's of the camera where explained in a very nice and understandable way. I can really recommend this workshop to anyone starting this great hobby! (But be prepared for the consequences ;-) )

Favourite Lens

My favourite lens at this time is definately the 50mm. You can create fantastic images with it with a very shallow depth of field, as shown in the image above in this post. The price is around 90 Euro's so anyone starting with a Canon dslr should buy it!

Purpose of this Blog

With this blog, I want to share my experiments and learnings in the field of photography. And hopefully it can be of some use to the starting DSLR user, like myself. Maybe we can even help each other out with burning questions!

Let's just see what happens :-)