After a long and intensive selection process, I finally made up my mind and bought a 50mm prime lens today. Since Nikons currently offers no less than 4 prime lenses it was a bit of a tough call. I went for the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D in the end. Early in the process I eliminated the two f/1.4 lenses Nikon has to offer. Mainly because of the price. You pay quite a bit more for just half a stop. So, it was a f/1.8 showdown between the D and AF-S G. The D doesn’t have a autofocus motor built-in, but my camera body has. So, for me, there’s no real need to have it in the lens itself. That saved me another € 50. I think that for the € 129 I paid for it, this lens is a real bargain. What’s more, on my Nikon DX body (with its 1.5 crop factor) it becomes a 75mm lens. Which makes it perfect for portraits. It’s actually quite a small lens. Especially when mounted on the body. Size is hard to imagine on this picture, but here it is anyway…
Of course, I had to try it out right away. We’re going to sell our fancy Italian coffee machine at Marktplaats (the Dutch equivalent of Craigslist). So I had to take some product shots of the machine. Have a look at the photos below and judge for yourself. I’m more than satisfied with the results. The pictures were taken with f/2.8 for a nice depth of field. Can hardly wait to do this with portaits as well.
By the way, if you’re interested in the coffee machine, let me know. It not only looks good, it makes an excellent espresso or cappuccino as well.