If your camera has been fitted with either a 28-105mm or 28-135mm zoom, in the same situation, you are very likely to just zoom out to a wide-angle setting in confined spaces and to the telephoto positions for shots that need a little bit of "reach" rather than do walk some distance to get them when using a 50mm standard lens, right? A wide-angle gives out better depth-of-field at the same aperture and shooting distance while a telephoto provides the opposite. You can use the 50mm lens to duplicate as much as possible the tendencies of wide-angle and telephoto focal lengths by shooting via smaller apertures for greater depth-of-field and utilizing selective focus/maximum f-stop combo to throw the background out-of-focus for a telephoto effect. Most zoom lenses, especially the variable aperture types, are too slow to be used for available and low light shooting while those with faster maximum openings as well as single focal length lenses having f-stops like f/2.0, f/1.8, f/1.4 and f/1.2 are very pricey to begin with. However, a 50mm standard lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.8 or f/1.4 is in the affordable price range, making it cheaper for anyone to experience with both available and low light shooting., especially when using ISO 100 or lower speed films. These eight photos below were photographed with the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens at Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown, about an hour before the sky turned dark, all shot on ISO 100 film. Some of the photos have a warm cast because the vendors were using tungsten-balanced bulbs to light up their stalls and goods. In the first photo, you can even see the vendor's hands plus the fruits he was holding to be a moving blur due to the 1/15 sec. shutter speed used. On the other fruit seller, spontaneous timing was the order of the day (nope, the EOS-1N RS was not utilized at all for this photo shoot - only the EOS 33). Arranging the fruits Excuse me - itching nose     Rows of tasty waxed duck Frying nuts Yes, the atmosphere at this Chinatown can be quite nasty at times especially when festive mood is not around the corner and probably next-to-impossible to shoot candid shots using shorter focal length lenses, like the 50mm, for example. During festive occasions, nobody really cares about shutterbugs snooping around for picture possibilities - these photos were shot during the countdown towards Chinese New Year 2001 celebrations. A bit too wide Get closer, slightly different subjects     A lone vendor plying his trade Shoppers making a call All the above photos are presented in their full formats with no cropping - if you do your own printing in a traditional darkroom or digitally via a 35mm film scanner, computer and inkjet printer, the option to crop and leave out any distracting elements is entirely yours to choose. It is not easy to get up close on a photo project using only the 50mm lens as there may be other contributing factors, such as a fence or a river between you and the subject, making it impossible to get any closer. << Back to Main . 1 . 2 . 3 .