50mm f1.2
Welcome to my web site dedicated to pictures taken with one camera and one lens.
I started taking pictures in my early teens in the 1980's, starting with a Canon AE-1, then the famous T-90 - which I still have - and a wonderful F-1 ('New' edition, the matt black design, not the classic 70's shiny black), which I lent to a friend and never saw again. For the last two decades I have been mostly taking pictures with pocket LUMIX cameras, with the amazing ability to quickly draw the camera out of my jeans and snap. A year ago my brother got himself a micro four-thirds (what a confusing name four-thirds) and I just snapped - it was time to go SLR again.
It didn't take long to decide on what camera; I bought a Canon 5D mark ii. A near perfect camera. The 5D has served me well, always strapped onto my hand when on a trip or some other adventure. Even though I have stopped carrying a camera bag, I decided early 2011 to carry the camera around every day. The quality difference between it and a small pocket cameras is just so
• Thames with Clipper, London May 2011
• Dark Boiling Water, Os July 2011
• Water Fountain, Florence July 2011
• Grey Waves, Bergen October 2011
• The Face Of Ted Sequence, Bergen October 2011
big - as is the pure pleasure of using it. I have enjoyed it in the Galapagos, summer of 2010 where I shot everything from iguanas to near-black volcanic rocks. It served me well on many trips including Singapore over Christmas 2010 with a theme of food, and frozen brush home in Norway. With my decision to carry the camera around every day again, the question became what the unifying theme would be. Should it be unifying London? Yes sure, but I travel enough that this would be too restrictive. How about textures? People? I decided it would be a lens - a lens I would use for almost everything.
Over the 2010/11 Christmas and New Years in Singapore I fell in love with the Canon 50mm f1.2. It was lovely. I already use the wide angle 28mm f1.8, normal 50mm f1.4 and portrait tele 85 f1.8. I was intrigued by my friend Harsha's 85mm f1.2. That lens has the extra heft for stability, and a beautiful amount of glass - pure, clear, lovely glass. The amazing opening at f1.2 produces such shallow, three dimensional, poetic, depth of field and it is super sharp, even at these extreme apertures. However the 85mm doesn't focus very closely and it's a pretty narrow view. It's quite a specialized lens. But then I came across the 50mm f1.2, our eyes met across the room. A beautifully balanced piece of glass with incredible sharpness, less than half a meter close-focus, razor thin depth of field and razor sharp focus across the range. What could be better? Walk in close for a portrait or a texture and step away for a wide shot. This is heaven.
Frode Hegland London 2011