DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Oly MFT lens for shallow DOF

Started Dec 22, 2014 | Discussions thread
Paul De Bra
Paul De Bra Forum Pro • Posts: 12,949
It really depends on subject distance and how much blur you want.
2

With the 45mm f/1.8 if you take a head shot you need to stop down quite a bit (to around f/4) to get a substantial part of the head in focus. If you consider your subject at least as important as the blurred background you will not use it up close at f/1.8.

The following shot was taken at 34mm f/4. (It won the teddybear challenge on dpreview a few months ago.) Look at the full size image and judge whether this image has enough of the teddybear in focus. It doesn't matter whether we think the background is sufficiently blurred or not. For a shot like this it's the subject that matters most. (This was shot with the 12-40 f/2.8 lens.)

Not nearly enough in focus at 34mm f/4.

And here is a shot at 45mm f/2.8 (with the 45 f/1.8 lens). This was at a rehearsal before a concert. F/2.8 was needed to get the conductor in focus. The conductor was 15 to 20 feet from the camera. The organ in the background was 150 to 200 feet from the camera.

45mm f/2.8 to show how much background blur you get.

-- hide signature --

Slowly learning to use the Olympus OM-D E-M5.
Public pictures at http://debra.zenfolio.com/.

 Paul De Bra's gear list:Paul De Bra's gear list
Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR Olympus OM-D E-M5 Olympus E-M5 II Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm F1.8 +3 more
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow