Getting to know my 35mm prime lens

A look at some flowers in the park. Picked this photo as it looks a lot catchier than my other photos from this session. Anyway, lesson to learn here is that the depth of field is shallow enough that part of the flower is blurred. This was not something I had to deal with using my kit lens given its smaller aperture. I need to get the hang of this.

With “street photography” being my “I’m out of subjects” mode of photography, I quickly found some tourists at Magellan’s Cross. They’re actually smiling at someone with a cam phone a little ahead of me, but this is one way of getting smiling subjects.

With my kit lens, it’s easy to take for granted just how useful zooming can be. I was forced to stitch this from three photos as moving too far would have had some plants get in the way and moving too close would crop the whole thing. Something tells me I could have gotten this with my kit lens at 16mm.

I actually only wanted to take a photo of the great tree they were sitting under, but it turned out flat when I viewed it on my computer. One serendipitous discovery is the expression of the couple sitting under it, hence this crop of my original photo of the tree.

I seems like everywhere I go, there are free Zumba sessions.

Some youngsters hanging out in the park.

One benefit of a faster lens it the ability to take actions shots late in the afternoon without having to raise the ISO.

Sunset at Mactan Channel. I would have liked a longer lens to see the boats better.

This actually looked too bright at f/1.8 so I had to take the aperture to f/3.5 and focused on the yellow ship. First time I shot something during the blue hour where it’s really obvious just how blue it is.

It’s dark and I had to shoot this wide open (f/1.8) at ISO800. Still had to up exposure by 0.4 in Lightroom. In any case, I like how viable the lens is at night. Also, it really helps that image quality is still good wide open.

Took this wide open (f/1.8) at ISO100. I had to adjust the exposure quite a bit in Lightroom. I guess I should have used ISO400 even at this aperture for relatively well lit areas.

I remember being this kid. Waiting for mom to get done with the groceries.

I really like the lens (SEL35f18) though I find myself wishing that I bought a wider lens. It is also kind of refreshing that the image is relatively free of distortion and vignetting. Using profile corrections in Lightroom actually made the sides unusually bright.

Overall, I don’t regret buying this lens and I’m eager to get some more shots with it.