Should I have bought the 50mm?

[CaliTransplant]

I finally bought myself a prime lens. I've rented the Pentax 50mm f1.4 a few times and it worked well. I was getting ready to rent it again for my next Disneyland trip in just a couple of weeks. Well for the number of times I've rented it a could have bought the 35mm f2.4, and so I did. I've only had it for a couple of days, but so far I'm loving it, except for some white balance issues I'm trying to work through. I keep reading blogs and articles about how nice the 50mm is. I always found it to be too tight for me. I used it as my main walk around lens with a switch to a high zoom for Animal Kingdom.

Is there magic to the 50mm I'm going to miss? I'm loving that the 35mm is a wider, but yes it is slight slower. The price difference would have meant only having the lens for my 1 day trip vs having it everyday.

Thanks for any opinions.

 

[ukcatfan]

I have had it for almost a year now and also have the 50mm f/1.4. I love both of them. The 35mm f/2.4 is not as fast, but I personally feel like it is usable wide open where the 50mm is a little soft wide open. I typically stop it down at least 2/3 of a stop, unless it is a must to get that extra light. The 35mm served me pretty well for character, low light, and night shots at WDW in November. It is not really fast enough for the extremes like HM, but I did get so keepers with it on POTC. I used it on 538 shots over the course of a week, but I intentionally used it a lot since it was the first time to WDW with it.

Over the past year I have more shots from it than the 50mm, even excluding the WDW shots. I would caution you to not use it for close up portraits though. It is just too wide for that. It seemed to work just fine for group shots though, especially the character ones where 50mm is often too tight and you cannot back up any farther.

 

[photo_chick]

To me it comes down more to what focal length you prefer than anything else. Sure, the 50 f/1.4 is a little faster, but 35mm f/2.4 is still pretty fast. If you feel like the 50 was too tight for you then the 35 is probably the right fit for you.

 

[mom2rtk]

I agree it's more about preferred focal length than which one is faster. I prefer the wider 35mm length, but many others here swear by the 50mm length. Just personal style. I find the 50 too short to be long and too long to be short.

 

[CaliTransplant]

Thanks. It makes me feel better about the decision. I do prefer the wider 35mm and I didn't think the difference in f-stop would be that big of a difference. It's not like going from f1.4 to f3.5 or something like that.

Pentax just announced a 50mm f1.8 that will be under $150. I figure now if I need a 50mm in the future I'll pick that one up after it comes out.