Singular Images

Santa Ana, CA, May 13 copyright 2017 Douglas Stockdale

This is not meant in any means to be a technical review of the Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens that I just purchased, but in the immortal words of the late Garry Winogrand, I want to see what this looks like.

This is essentially the first exposure I made after walking out of Samy’s Camera in Santa Ana, a full frame capture on my Canon 5DMk3. I am planning to dedicate this lens on my Canon 5D for my studio work re-photographing photo books for The PhotoBook Journal. More about why this is occurring in a pending post. BUT, I may just tuck this little lens in my little camera bag when I take some road trips, or if I want to go low-key/light-weight, replace the 24-105mm zoom altogether ;- )

Right now, I want to see this full frame image after processing with PhotoShop in a lower resolution (72dpi) JPEG on my monitor, since the images I make with this are essentially destined for viewing in this format on the net. I first did a check of the image’s outer edges and corners since that is where lens usually start to fail in image quality. My assessment: looking good, this appears to be a keeper and no need to make a return trip back to Samy’s Camera.

And no, I am not thinking about another photo project involving Southern California food trailers, but it is nevertheless an interesting idea. I must admit, while walking out of the store and trying to decide what to quickly photograph, this red foodie trailer quickly caught my eye. So a little bit of formal composition and the photo was captured.

After working with a zoom lens for so long, using a fixed focal length (e.g. prime) lens was a mental rust remover; if I wanted to tighten up this composition and stay full frame, I actually needed to move my feet. Back in the day, when one bought a 35mm film camera, it usually came outfitted with a 50mm lens, such that my Canon Ft-QL had a 50mm f/1.8 lens, same for my upgrade to the Canon Ae-1.

Cheers!