Borrowed my friend’s Canon 6D plus 50mm f1.4 lens today.

I have been using DSLR for about 3 years now. Today is my first time using full frame DSLR, first time using f1.4 lens, and also first time using full frame plus f1.4 combo..Ha quite unbelievable, right?

The most exciting thing for people enter DSLR world is perhaps the shallow depth of field. Many people want to try out f1.4 lens so badly when they bought their first dslr. They crave for it so long that finally they can get those bokeh in their own photo. I know that is super exciting.

Same goes with full frame. Every photographer want full frame. I was using Pentax dslr for two years. I Always saw people post or comment on Pentax forum saying that they hope Pentax can make full frame dslr.

I was just not that fascinated about full frame and f1.4 lens.

First of all I think people who want this combo is mainly for shooting people. For shooting portrait, fashion, wedding, I think full frame with wide aperture is a necessary.

I have been using APS-C sensor dslr for about 3 years. I was using Pentax for the first two years. And I switched to Canon last year. When I was using Pentax. My largest aperture lens was F2.8. I am a zoom guy. I was using Pentax 16-50 F2.8 and Pentax 50-135 F2.8 mainly. Now I am using Canon 7D. It is a APS-C sensor dslr too. I still mainly use F2.8 zoom lens.

For event, food, product, interior. It is never a problem for me. When you shoot interior and product, you do not need shallow depth of field. For event f2.8 is good enough. For food, I usually shoot at f4-f8. The only time I wish if I had full frame with f1.4 lens that would be great is when I shoot portrait. I did wedding once in my life so far. I feel APS-C sensor with f2.8 is not enough to separate subject from background.  If you look at wedding photo, many of those photo look very 3D and have beautiful dreamy background. They are definitely shot with full frame with like f1.4 lens. Also remember this. When you mount a f2.8 lens on APS-C dslr. It loose one stop shallow depth of field. It produce same depth of filed as full frame with f4 lens at same focal length.

Ok. so today I am helping to take some photo for my friend’s new design cloth. so it is a portrait assignment. One of my best friend recently just bought a Canon 6D with 50mm f1.4 lens. I thought why not borrow from him. and see how the result come out. Ok I was quite exciting this time. Finally after 3 years, I can use full frame to shoot portrait now.

I can feel the 3D look immediately just by taking some snapshots. I was only using f1.4-1.8.

Ok some photo here

It is 50mm lens. You won’t get the same amount of background blur as using 85mm or 135mm lens. I find I like 50mm lens to shoot portrait. You can see the environment. I like the effect.

The time of the shoot was around 7-8pm. It is around sunset at summer. It was a bit late. but I think we can still consider it the gold time for portrait. The quality of light is pretty good.

I noticed when using 50mm lens. Photographer need to pay more attention to the background image. When we use telephoto lens shoot people. we see much less background image. With 50mm, we see a lot more background image. So it need to be careful to choose where to place your subject. I do not shoot portrait often. Wasn’t pay a lot of attention to it today. For example, the first photo I think the background is kind mess not pretty. It distract the photo somehow. The rest are better.

Also I find it is quite hard to track focus with moving subject using f1.4-1.8 lens. I got many miss focus photo. I think with more practice I can improve the situation. Also 6d track focus ability seems not as good as my 7d.

When It is in focus. It produce quite good sharpness even at f1.4.

This is the 100% crop of the first photo. It is one of the a few photo that has dead on focus. Many other photo are pretty close. but not as sharp as this one.

One more thing. The viewfinder in full frame is also a joy to use. Overall if I am shooting portrait and wedding mainly, I would difinately upgrade to full frame with a few large aperture prime. But for now I am stay with my 7D and f2.8 lens.