Kris D'Amico Photography

April 27th, 2009 by Kris

Or why sometimes it’s better to shoot with a cheap lens than an expensive one!

So, I did the cool little shoot with Dave Robbins from Blackhalk. He’s launching a solo career and has a new album coming out called Soul Mining.Well, I look at artist that are heading out on their own as new businesses, they need art for the web, for print, for PR, etc. You are now asking why I am talking about all this, well when we are shooting for PR the images need to be crisp and clean and have a quality to them that is more business than art; in sharp contrast, album and web images can be fun and “artsy,” right? So, look at these too images:

Fairly crisp and clean, everything that’s supposed to be in focus is in focus and we get a good idea of what he looks like. Well, I shot this with my big (and I’m afraid to say expensive) lens. Now take a look at this pic:

Now we shot this one with a CHEAP 50mm. Notice the visual texture that happens from the “bad” optics or “cheap” glass? Part of this look is the very low depth of field (f1.8), but there is a bit of this that is from the poor optics. Anyway, obviously we can’t use this look for everything and most stuff requires a “cleaner” look. But it beats trying to fake this in photoshop!

So anyway, before you go hating on the $50 cheap lens, think about what you might be shooting; it could be a useful tool in certain situations! Your turn – go shoot something!