Dominican Republic With a 50mm

When we were writing up our packing lists for what to bring on our family vacation to the Dominican Republic, we struggled when we got to the camera part.  We didn't want to be weighed down with all our equipment, nor did we want to risk something happening to it.  On the other hand, we didn't buy a DSLR to not use it.  So we decided to take our body and one lens.

Because we didn't want to take our flash, we wanted a lens that would perform well in low light.  Our macro lens could go as low as f2.8, but it was big and heavy.  Our kits lens is... well, a kit lens.  We needed something better.

So we decided to buy a new 50mm f1.4 lens.  One of the reasons we could justify it was that we figured it would be small enough to also take backpack camping in the summer.  (And, of course, we could have some more fun with it artistically.)  We also bought a really small outdoorsy bag to put it in (only the small 50mm lens would fit in there with the body on its back).  The bag, besides being compact, had a few good features for bad weather, like waterproof zippers and a rain cover.  Again, perfect for the vacation where tropical rains could appear any time, as well as for when we go backpacking.

It was really interesting trying to get used to the lens once we were in the Dominican.  We really hadn't used it before leaving, and so we hadn't yet learned that you really don't want to use it wide open (i.e. on f1.4) all the time; you just don't always get enough depth of field to keep the important parts of the picture in focus.  (Of course, at night, we didn't have a lot of choice...)  It was also interesting to learn how to make just one focal length work in every situation.  It wasn't always easy, and some compositions definitely suffered.  But we did end up with a decent set of vacation photos, so it was worth it in the end!

I shared a few shots below (which you can click to see bigger versions as usual), but you can check out the whole set, too.