My one great vice is that I spend WAY too much money on photography
equipment (don't worry, my wife has her indulgences too). I do have
one "cheap" Canon lens however, that is highly regarded and often
well-reviewed. This is the Canon 50mm f1.4 lens, and I decided to
take it out into the garden today and exercise it. These shots were
all when the sun came out again after a short noon-time shower.

Here is a stand of lilies that I have planted under some daylilies.
The hemerocallis shade the base of the lilium, which they like, and
once the lilies are done, the daylilies start up, producing a long
season of something in bloom in this spot. From a distance with the
lilium foliage hidden by the hemerocallis, these can almost look like
pure white daylilies.

This was shot with the 50mm f1.4 stopped down 2-levels to f2.8. This
provides both decent bokeh blur as well as enough DOF to cover most of
the flowers. I suppose that I could have produced the same results
with my 70-200 f2.8L IS or the 300mm f4L IS from further away, but
both of those lenses cost at least 4-times what this 50mm f1.4 did.

JD
Canon 1D-mkIII
EXIF Data Included
e-mail: blissful-wind(at)usa.net

Additional images at;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/john-pa/

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:08:25 -0400, John - Pa. wrote:

My one great vice is that I spend WAY too much money on photography
equipment (don't worry, my wife has her indulgences too). I do have one
"cheap" Canon lens however, that is highly regarded and often
well-reviewed. This is the Canon 50mm f1.4 lens, and I decided to take
it out into the garden today and exercise it. These shots were all when
the sun came out again after a short noon-time shower.

Here is a stand of lilies that I have planted under some daylilies. The
hemerocallis shade the base of the lilium, which they like, and once the
lilies are done, the daylilies start up, producing a long season of
something in bloom in this spot. From a distance with the lilium foliage
hidden by the hemerocallis, these can almost look like pure white
daylilies.

This was shot with the 50mm f1.4 stopped down 2-levels to f2.8. This
provides both decent bokeh blur as well as enough DOF to cover most of
the flowers. I suppose that I could have produced the same results with
my 70-200 f2.8L IS or the 300mm f4L IS from further away, but both of
those lenses cost at least 4-times what this 50mm f1.4 did.

It would look different with the other lenses, especially with the 300mm.
You would zoom in on the background without enlarging the subject.

Of the three posted pictures, I like A and B (about equally). C has too
much open space; I'd probably use a vertical crop (portrait-like) instead.

--
Regards, Robert http://www.arumes.com