Image Up Advertising & Design

| OHCC LIVING | NOVEMBER 2021 | 29 Why would you use a fixed lens on your digital camera? One favorite lens is the 50mm prime lens. It is fantastic in low light, has a high-quality sensor, and the photos almost always come out sharp and beautiful. A 50mm prime lens is far from wide-angle, but it can be used for landscape photography if you are willing to use sneaker zoom (walk closer to or farther from the subject, as needed), and you concentrate on what you want to show. A 50mm prime lens forces you to take your time and think about how you want to shoot and focus on the most important parts of the scene. With a zoom lens, you can adjust the focal length at will until the scene looks good without ever changing your position, but with a prime lens you have to try something different, move in or out, find a new angle or a different distance, or an unusual perspective. And you will get landscape shots that are clear from corner to corner. If you find yourself with your 50mm prime lens in a situation that would call for a wide angle, you can take several 50mm shots and slowly rotate your camera and stitch the result together in Photoshop or an equivalent. The 50mm prime lens is great for shooting inside a museum or church or someplace with poor lighting. It does a great job without flash. And for shooting close-up it's amazing as well. An additional advantage of using a 50mm prime lens is the weight saved. My Nikon DX 18-105mm lens is fantastic but it weighs a little over a pound and is big enough to attract attention from airport security. My Nikon 50mm weighs in at around 6.5 oz. That's a lot less weight to drag around all day. The photo above was taken with a 50mm prime lens. The OHCC Photo Club is open to all residents. Most of us are enthusiastic amateur photographers, of all skill levels. Some have fancy cameras, and some just use phones. We meet on the third Thursday of the month, in the Lamia room, at 1 pm. But check the schedule! Dues are only $8 per year. Photography

• Cover