# 50mm for Landscape?



## wmc1117

I was just curious if its impractical to use the 50mm f/1.8 for landscape shots.  I know it is primarily used for close ups and portraits but just wondering what peoples thoughts are?  If not let me know what people do find themselves using it for the most?


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## redtippmann

its good if you don't use a f/stop of 1.8  you shouldn't go that low because only a small portion of your image will be in the DOF.

I use mine for low light situations


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## musicaleCA

I use my 50mm f/1.4 for low-light and portraits, but with portraits I usually stick to around 2.5 as my low point. That 1.4 is just for really low light.

What I'm confused about is, why would you want to uses a normal focal length for landscapes? You can get a whole lot more landscape with a wide-angle or ultra-wide-angle focal length like 24mm or even 17mm.


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## kundalini

The 50mm can be a fantastic lanscape use, given the right scene.  It's sharpest at f/4, but very good to f/8.  With a "vista" type of shot, this should not be an issue.


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## kundalini

musicaleCA said:


> What I'm confused about is, why would you want to uses a normal focal length for landscapes? You can get a whole lot more landscape with a wide-angle or ultra-wide-angle focal length like 24mm or even 17mm.


Those focal lengths may not be in his bag.  :er:


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## musicaleCA

Point, I wasn't trying to knock the 50mm for landscapes. Prime lenses are damn sharp, I just really prefer to have a wider-angle lens to take in more of the scene. It can let you easily place stuff in the foreground too to add some interest. Just my $0.025 though (that's right, two and a _half_ cents, just to be devious  ).


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## Dao

To OP:

Of course, you can use 50mm lens to take landscape shot.  Or you can even use telephoto lens.  

A lot of people use wide or ultra wide angle lens for it, but there are some great landscape photos I saw in the past were taken with longer focal length lens.

I remember I read a book (forgot which one) demonstrate how, in some case, the composition of a landscape scene is better with a telephoto than a wide angle lens.


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## LarryD

A 50mm is fine for landscapes if you are positioned properly..

Typically, on today's cameras, the 50mm lens will give you a smaller field of view than it might have with film cameras....something along the lines of what an 80mm lens would have..  This means that your landscaped will reflect that difference.


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## DScience

musicaleCA said:


> Point, I wasn't trying to knock the 50mm for landscapes. Prime lenses are damn sharp, I just really prefer to have a wider-angle lens to take in more of the scene. It can let you easily place stuff in the foreground too to add some interest. Just my $0.025 though (that's right, two and a _half_ cents, just to be devious  ).



Well your suggesting lenses that he (or she) probably does not have which is why the OP are asking if a 50mm will work. He was not asking what's the 'best' lens or a 'better' lens for taking landscape shots. 

However, to the OP: I have a 50mm 1.4 and I think it has potential to take great landscape shots, as I have taken several that I was very pleased with.


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## kundalini

This was a dicussion of 50mm f/1.4 vs f/1.8 but check out post #16 by Sw1tchFX.

*Clicky*


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## musicaleCA

LarryD said:


> Typically, on today's cameras, the 50mm lens will give you a smaller field of view than it might have with film cameras....something along the lines of what an 80mm lens would have..  This means that your landscaped will reflect that difference.



I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).


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## manaheim

I use a Sigma 10-20mm 4/5.6 for my landscapes on my crop-sensor camera.  I find it gives me the best overall shots and an appropriately wide angle to really capture the "vista".  I often find that a tighter zoom doesn't really capture the feel... but that depends on what you want to focus on. 

Another trick to keep in the bag is that you can take multiple overlapping shots with the 50mm and stitch them together.  This is a bit more work, but gives you an INCREDIBLY sharp image which is also appropriately wide to meet your landscape needs (and also has a lot of pixels if you want to print an image the size of a grayhound bus with crazy level of detail)


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## musicaleCA

manaheim said:


> Another trick to keep in the bag is that you can take multiple overlapping shots with the 50mm and stitch them together.  This is a bit more work, but gives you an INCREDIBLY sharp image which is also appropriately wide to meet your landscape needs (and also has a lot of pixels if you want to print an image the size of a grayhound bus with crazy level of detail)



D'oh! Why did I think of that right away? Not exactly practical for long exposures though; I had a hell of a time getting two shots stitched together that were 4min exposures (though that had much to do with having to take the camera off my tripod and replacing the battery in between shots). Took a bit of fixing to the darn thing print-ready.


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## gsgary

Of coarse you can, i have shot sort of landscape with my 300mmF2.8L


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## Battou

It can be done just fine as long as you stop it down. Any lens will work for landscapes as long as you know what you are looking to achieve.

Broken (reprocessed) by Battou - Photo Lucidity - Shot with 50mm 1.4 on full film frame

Untitled #1 by Battou - Photo Lucidity -  Shot with 50mm 1.4 on full film frame (note High rezolution, I need to resize that one, if the image is too big just refresh the page)

Incarceration by Battou - Photo Lucidity - Shot with 50mm 1.4 on full film frame (note High rezolution, I need to resize that one, if the image is too big just refresh the page)

Around the bend by Battou - Photo Lucidity - Shot with 85mm 1.8 on full film frame

I also have a few landscape shots taken with a 400mm 5.6


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## Dao

musicaleCA said:


> LarryD said:
> 
> 
> 
> Typically, on today's cameras, the 50mm lens will give you a smaller field of view than it might have with film cameras....something along the lines of what an 80mm lens would have..  This means that your landscaped will reflect that difference.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).
Click to expand...


hum...

EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.

So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not.  50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.


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## musicaleCA

Dao said:


> musicaleCA said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LarryD said:
> 
> 
> 
> Typically, on today's cameras, the 50mm lens will give you a smaller field of view than it might have with film cameras....something along the lines of what an 80mm lens would have..  This means that your landscaped will reflect that difference.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> hum...
> 
> EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
> Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.
> 
> So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not.  50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.
Click to expand...


Reference?


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## Jeff Canes

musicaleCA said:


> --What I'm confused about is, why would you want to uses a normal focal length for landscapes? You can get a whole lot more landscape with a wide-angle or ultra-wide-angle focal length like 24mm or even 17mm--


It just depends on the makeup of scene and your shooting style


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## manaheim

musicaleCA said:


> manaheim said:
> 
> 
> 
> Another trick to keep in the bag is that you can take multiple overlapping shots with the 50mm and stitch them together. This is a bit more work, but gives you an INCREDIBLY sharp image which is also appropriately wide to meet your landscape needs (and also has a lot of pixels if you want to print an image the size of a grayhound bus with crazy level of detail)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> D'oh! Why did I think of that right away? Not exactly practical for long exposures though; I had a hell of a time getting two shots stitched together that were 4min exposures (though that had much to do with having to take the camera off my tripod and replacing the battery in between shots). Took a bit of fixing to the darn thing print-ready.
Click to expand...

 
It's actually quite doable... at least if you have photoshop and keep your settings consistent between exposures. The biggest challenge is often the color balancing and getting the light just right.

Here is one I did QUICKLY just as an experiment... I'm not even totally happy with the results, but I was shocked at how good it came out given the relatively small amount of effort I put into it. (I'm waiting for the weather to clear up so I can go redo this... too much haze)

Oh it's also probably worth noting that the original image of this thing is 29,000 pixels wide. 

(btw, forgive the stupid watermark...)


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## manaheim

musicaleCA said:


> Dao said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> musicaleCA said:
> 
> 
> 
> I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> hum...
> 
> EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
> Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.
> 
> So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not. 50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Reference?
Click to expand...

 
Musicale, you are correct.  Dao, you are close but slightly off.  The physical effect of reducing the width of the view on a lens is universal across lenses.  So an 18mm full frame AND an 18mm crop frame lens would BOTH work as a roughly 27mm lens on a crop sensor.

I think you're assuming that the lens manufacturers actually advertise their crop-sensor lenses as an appropriately more tight focal length to compensate for the cameras they would be mounted on, but this is not actually the case... they merely don't stress as much about the outer edges of the glass when making an 18mm crop-sensor-targeted lens as they would for an 18mm full-frame-targeted one.


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## Dao

musicaleCA said:


> Dao said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> musicaleCA said:
> 
> 
> 
> I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> hum...
> 
> EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
> Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.
> 
> So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not.  50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Reference?
Click to expand...





Well, basically focal length is the optical property of the lens.  The type of digital body it mounts to has nothing to do with it's optical properties.  Therefore, a lens has a focal length of 50mm, it is going to be 50mm whether it is design for full frame or cropped body (i.e. EF or EF-S in Canon system). 

So now, the Field of View. 
Let say, for a EF lens mounted on a full frame body.  Assuming 100% (which is not the case, but I just use it as an example) of the light passing through the lens falls onto the Full frame sensor.  When the same EF lens mounted on a cropped sensor body such as Canon EOS 40D, only 40% of the light falls onto the sensor.  Because the sensor only capture the center part of the image.  So 60% of the light are just wasted.

So, the lens manufacturers start to make lenses only work in cropped body.  Those lenses actually have the similar optical properties as the one made for full frame except the light that pass through the lens cover smaller area (40%).   For a cropped body, it is not a problem at all.   In other words, it seems like the lens crop the image for you already at the lens. (smaller field of view)

Hope this help.


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## Dao

manaheim said:


> musicaleCA said:
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dao said:
> 
> 
> 
> hum...
> 
> EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
> Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.
> 
> So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not. 50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Reference?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Musicale, you are correct.  Dao, you are close but slightly off.  The physical effect of reducing the width of the view on a lens is universal across lenses.  So an 18mm full frame AND an 18mm crop frame lens would BOTH work as a roughly 27mm lens on a crop sensor.
> 
> I think you're assuming that the lens manufacturers actually advertise their crop-sensor lenses as an appropriately more tight focal length to compensate for the cameras they would be mounted on, but this is not actually the case... they merely don't stress as much about the outer edges of the glass when making an 18mm crop-sensor-targeted lens as they would for an 18mm full-frame-targeted one.
Click to expand...



haha  did I misunderstand the original statement from Musicale?  hum ..   if yes ..  I am sorry.  

Edited : Now, I re-read my statement ... hahaha ..  what did I just say ...      This is what happened when I am still sleepy at 5am ...  The FoV is the same!!  I cannot believe I said that ...


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## musicaleCA

manaheim said:


> musicaleCA said:
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> manaheim said:
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> Yadda yadda, cool picture here...
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> 
> Hrm, well perhaps I'm a little jaded. My best experience with such technique was this shot, and in that I had to replace the battery for the second exposure, so I couldn't compose the second shot (on the left) as closely as I wanted to the first (right). Bloody focal length changed on me and I didn't se it until I was back at my computer, but that's what I get for shooting in the dark without a flashlight. >.< *grumble*
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> Dao said:
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> manaheim said:
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> musicaleCA said:
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> Reference?
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> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Musicale, you are correct. Dao, you are close but slightly off. The physical effect of reducing the width of the view on a lens is universal across lenses. So an 18mm full frame AND an 18mm crop frame lens would BOTH work as a roughly 27mm lens on a crop sensor.
> 
> I think you're assuming that the lens manufacturers actually advertise their crop-sensor lenses as an appropriately more tight focal length to compensate for the cameras they would be mounted on, but this is not actually the case... they merely don't stress as much about the outer edges of the glass when making an 18mm crop-sensor-targeted lens as they would for an 18mm full-frame-targeted one.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> haha  did I misunderstand the original statement from Musicale?  hum ..   if yes ..  I am sorry.
> 
> Edited : Now, I re-read my statement ... hahaha .. what did I just say ... This is what happened when I am still sleepy at 5am ... The FoV is the same!! I cannot believe I said that ...
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Ah, the dangers of posting while sleepy. At least my ego can stay intact thinking that I'm always right. :lmao: (Just kidding.)
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


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## manaheim

musicaleCA said:


> Hrm, well perhaps I'm a little jaded. My best experience with such technique was this shot, and in that I had to replace the battery for the second exposure, so I couldn't compose the second shot (on the left) as closely as I wanted to the first (right). Bloody focal length changed on me and I didn't se it until I was back at my computer, but that's what I get for shooting in the dark without a flashlight. >.< *grumble*


 
Ha... we are always our harshest critics.  _I_ looked at that shot and my instant reaction was "_whoa! nice shot!_".  I mean it maaaaaaaaaaaaybe looks like you missed the focus a bit (unless the humidity just caused it to fuzz up a bit) but I seriously don't see any major problems with that shot beyond that.


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## musicaleCA

Aha, well thanks manaheim. For the most part the reaction to that pano has been "wow, nice shot" but naturally I got really picky when I prepared it for printing on ImageKind. I did get the focus off on the second snap to the left; it was actually sharper! So I had to blur it up a bit so the darned break between the two shots looked more natural. But I digress. :greenpbl: (Any fuzziness was probably a combination of 4min exposure, humidity, and the relatively wide aperture; I just didn't feel like sitting for 16 minutes waiting for one exposure for more DoF.)


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## Dwig

musicaleCA said:


> LarryD said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> incorrect.
> 
> A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens regardless of whether it is designed to cover a 24x36mm image area (aka "full frame") or an APS-c image area ("crop sensor" or "DX" in Nikon-speak). On a "full frame" body, film or digital, a 50mm lens is about 20% longer than "normal". 50's were "standard" in the old film days, but never were a "normal" focal length; they were always slightly long. On an APS-c body, a 50mm lens is about 80-90% longer than "normal", giving a modest telephoto effect.
> 
> Either way, a 50mm lens would fall into a range that is not the most commonly used lens for landscapes. While any lens of any focal length can, with the right subject, produce very effective landscape images, the most commonly used focal lengths are either rather wide (28mm to 18mm on "full frame" or 18mm to 10mm on APS-c) or rather long (200mm+ or 135mm+, respectively).
> 
> Probably the only "landscape" shot of mine that I really think is good and that was taken with a 50mm was taken on 35mm full frame film. While most would class it as a landscape, it is more a portrait of a tree than anything else. The bulk of my landscapes have been taken with wide lenses in the 20-24mm range (film) or on digital with the equivalent of 20-24mm lenses. A small portion have been done with long lenses. My "eye" tends to see images that are either vistas or details. I don't seem to "see" the middle ground between the two, at least with landscapes. Most landscape photograhers seem to have a similar vision based on the population distribution of the most common published works.
Click to expand...


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## musicaleCA

Hrm, now I just went to do test shots to show what I meant, but whoops, go figure I was indeed wrong. (That's right, I can admit when I'm wrong.  ) The EF-S at 50mm has an equivalent FoV to the EF 50mm. (disappointingly, that means my EF-S 17-85 is effectively a 27-136; thankfully pincushion distortion is almost non-existant, but I'm adding this to my reasons to replace the damn thing and it's cursed CA with L glass and a decent wide-angle) *grumbles at camera salepersons telling him that they would be the same...another reason to go full frame...grrr...*

Thank you Dwig for correcting my error. I was pretty darn sure I was right (seems that whenever crop factors are explained, the lack of a difference between lenses designed for the smaller frame and those designed for full frames is left out). Oh well.


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## manaheim

musicaleCA said:


> Aha, well thanks manaheim. For the most part the reaction to that pano has been "wow, nice shot" but naturally I got really picky when I prepared it for printing on ImageKind. I did get the focus off on the second snap to the left; it was actually sharper! So I had to blur it up a bit so the darned break between the two shots looked more natural. But I digress. :greenpbl: (Any fuzziness was probably a combination of 4min exposure, humidity, and the relatively wide aperture; I just didn't feel like sitting for 16 minutes waiting for one exposure for more DoF.)


 
Totally understand... kinda surprised on the 16 minutes thing, though. Most of my night shots (at least the ones that would have that level of light) run around 30 seconds at F8 or so... give or take.  What were you doing that took 16 minutes?


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## wmc1117

Thank you for the input guys, I am looking into the 50mm 1.8 for now cause I know it isn't that expensive but I also may want to look for a good quality walking around lens and a wide angle, hmm any suggestions?


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## wmc1117

Oh, and Manaheim great shot of the Charles and Boston, see that view a whole lot cause I go to school at Bentley University in Waltham, about 15 minutes from Boston


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## musicaleCA

manaheim said:


> musicaleCA said:
> 
> 
> 
> Aha, well thanks manaheim. For the most part the reaction to that pano has been "wow, nice shot" but naturally I got really picky when I prepared it for printing on ImageKind. I did get the focus off on the second snap to the left; it was actually sharper! So I had to blur it up a bit so the darned break between the two shots looked more natural. But I digress. :greenpbl: (Any fuzziness was probably a combination of 4min exposure, humidity, and the relatively wide aperture; I just didn't feel like sitting for 16 minutes waiting for one exposure for more DoF.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Totally understand... kinda surprised on the 16 minutes thing, though. Most of my night shots (at least the ones that would have that level of light) run around 30 seconds at F8 or so... give or take.  What were you doing that took 16 minutes?
Click to expand...


Aha, I wasn't manahiem, but I would've been had I stopped-down the aperture at all. I was probably around f/4 or f/5 for those. I've found I get less noise with longer exposure and lowest ISO, as opposed to what I've seen some people do which is shoot wide open and have a much shorter exposure time. May just be the poor signal-to-noise ratio of the 450D.

The exposures both took 4mins, but had I stopped down 2 stops, naturally that would've had to go to 16mins (unless I'm messing up my exposure calculations in my brain, but I got it right most of the time while I was shooting). >.<

wmc: What do you consider "good quality"? And what make is your camera?  (If a Canon, an EF-S 17-85 might float your boat, though it has its problems.)


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## wmc1117

Sorry I have a Canon, Do you like your 17-85 MusicaleCA?  You said that it has its problems, just curious what those are?


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## musicaleCA

I like it. It's a good lens to have for the sake of versatility; I don't think I could've shot Greek Day here nearly as effectively without that extra 30mm in length. I went into more detail about my experience with it here. There are a few other comments about that particular lens in that thread too that might help you out.


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