New toy, cold day...

[Tom Henkel]

I bought a 35mm f/1.4L this week and went out this morning to try it out on this office building. This kind of shot wasn't really the reason I bought the lens, but the result's weren't bad. I proabaly should have spent more time exploring different angles, but it was about 10 degrees F this morning so I just did a drive-by shot.

[Asher Kelman]

I like the lens tom and the shot.

The lens because it is very sharp has good contrast and color and best of all is fast.

On a 20D/30D its a 51mm equivalent, a perfect camera for round tables with 10 people at an event. On the full frames it can be one's only lens at it's fast.

With the advent of great zooms such as the 24-75 or now the 24-105, this lens has been forgotten somewhat.

If, however, like me you would do anything not to use flash and don't mind zooming with your feet, this lens is a great one-lens choice.

This picture itself, is startling in its colors. They seems, at least on my 17" Powerbook Pro oversaturated. That may be your artistic choice.

Still, it looks like a pink palace and the effect, for me at least works, like "Even if your lying, say once more that you love me!"

The subject has major symbolic connotations, at least to a Magritte sensitized mind. I know it is only a hedge. However, like the train thrusting out of the fireplace in one of Magritte's famous paintings, "Time Transfixed"* the hedge does seem to be going for the entrance to the palace, notably, pink.

I'd love to see this in B&W too and some 100% enlargements for detail.

I hope you will photograph flowers, people and much more ans hsare them as this lens deserves to be celebrated!

I'm a sucker for one lens street photography. This lens hold such a lot of potential and I hope you use it a lot.

As an architectural lens, you need to check for distortion and the DXO software to determine the suitability for critical work with and without correction. I'd like to see some feedback on this.

Asher




*"In explaining Time Transfixed, Magritte said: "I decided to paint the image of a locomotive . . . In order for its mystery to be evoked, another immediately familiar image without mystery — the image of a dining room fireplace — was joined." It is in the surprising juxtaposition and scale shift of these common and unrelated images that their mystery and magic arises. The artist transformed the pipe of a coal-burning stove into a charging locomotive, situating the train in a fireplace vent so that it appears to be emerging from a railway tunnel. The tiny engine races out into the stillness of a sparsely furnished dining room, its smoke neatly floating up the chimney, suggesting in turn the smoke of coal in the stove."