my fastest lens is a 2.5...

[shadowfox]

My fastest RF lens is 1:1.7 because I'm too cheap to spend the bucks for a Summicron.
Talking about 35mm focal length, of course.

 

[Yoricko]

At one point of time, I had only the CV 35mm 2.5 PII to work with. I spend roughly same amount of time in sunny light and in poor light conditions and I find that I need that half a stop to get my tact-sharps images ...

I think speed is especially important for film users who cannot just change ISO on the get-go.

 

[leicapixie]

The limited depth of field is not the "way people see"! Small digitals have proved that. i looked yesterday at Thorsten Overgaard's blog latest. It is so irritating when all the details are lost. After awhile, i had jungle blindness!The bur out of focus makes one unable to see!I had a Canon f1.2, used Leica's Noctilux f1.
Big deal. Prefer my Summicron and lenses as speedy as f2. My sharpest lens? The Nikkor Micro (Macro) 55mm f3,5!

 

[Sparrow]

The limited depth of field is not the "way people see"! Small digitals have proved that. i looked yesterday at Thorsten Overgaard's blog latest. It is so irritating when all the details are lost. After awhile, i had jungle blindness!The bur out of focus makes one unable to see!I had a Canon f1.2, used Leica's Noctilux f1.
Big deal. Prefer my Summicron and lenses as speedy as f2. My sharpest lens? The Nikkor Micro (Macro) 55mm f3,5!

Did you not get the memo? ... Some inane object pin sharp in the foreground with an unintelligible myopic blur over the rest of the print is the pinnacle of photographic achievement these days I'm told 😉

 

[kemal_mumcu]

As a film shooter, I find having a fast lens very important. I might have iso50 film in the camera and I am presented with a shot indoors. It's the 1.5 Sonnar leaning against a wall at a quarter-of-a-second. Maybe I might get it... sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. With a digital RF with the ability to go to iso 800 I would be happy with a slower lens.

I had a 21f4 with a 75f2.5 for a short period of time. I couldn't do it, I needed something faster.

 

[rdeleskie]

The only thing more silly to me than the bokeh craze is the current backlash against it. Show me a good shot at f8 and I'll match it with one at f2, or f1.5. And vice-versa. It all depends on the subject matter, the vision of the artist, and the taste of the viewer.

To Joe's point, of course there is nothing wrong with having "only" a f2.5 lens. I personally prefer f2 or 1.8 as a base because it gives me greater flexibility when determining how I want to control the DOF; more options in low light conditions, especially if I want to shoot with a faster shutter; and it allows me to close down a stop or two to achieve greater sharpness while still maintaining a large aperture.

Joe - having used and let go of faster lenses, do you feel your photographic style has suffered? Are you missing shots you would have gotten at f1.5 or f2? Is low-light or narrow DOF photography something you would like to move back into? To me, those are the only relevant questions.

 

[back alley]

i don't believe that i'm missing out on shots...mostly because i am a daytime shooter and rarely venture out into the darkness these days.
the need is irrational at this point...like i 'should' have a faster lens, 'just in case'.
i shoot alot at 4-5.6...
even last night i was looking at some of the faster lenses in the classifieds...

 

[Bill Clark]

I have a Canon 1.4 50mm and a Zeiss 80mm f.14 fits Canon stuff.

 

[PhotoGog]

If sharpness is a bourgeois concept, fastness is a neoliberal one

 

[Rayt]

I am a film shooter so the difference between walking around with a f2.5 and a f1.4 lens is so I can continue to shoot for another hour. This is enough reason for me. I only need one of my lenses to be fast, the most used focal length which is the 35mm Summilux. I also carry a 50mm Summicron or Elmar plus something wider maybe a CV 25 Skopar.

 

[peterm1]

Since the advent of highly sensitive digital sensors that can comfortably shoot at 3200 ISO I find I feel less inclined to need fast lenses regularly. Having said this though I find I still like to use fast lenses in order to separate the subject from its background and produce nice bokeh where possible. Yes I admit it I am a bokeh "wh*re". 🙂

 

[besk]

Again, I keep bumping into depth of field (depth of sharpness) and can't bear to
shoot wider than around 2.8 with any lens in the 35mm format.

I have a Nokton 1.5 but have never used it.

 

[Leica All Day]

The reason for fast glass for me is 1) to get shots like the one below, and 2) because there are 6 months of rather dark winter here and lots of cafes and pubs to seek joys in 😉

This is the very last shot taken yesterday on my Cron 50, just before I sold it. Now waiting for a Lux 35

awesome shot !

 

[Ko.Fe.]

My fastest lens for now is Jupiter-3 50 1.5. Where f1.5 is sharp enough for me and at subjective part it is superior to all and many 50mm LM lenses I have tried. It gives me most of the character and pleasing pictures where I care for it most. On BW film. From f1.5 to f22.



But it sucks on digital 🙂.

 

[raid]

I use mostly 50/2 as my normal lens as we have many sunny days in Pensacola. Yesterday, I used a Hexanon 50/2.4 with ISO 200 setting.

 

[Dogman]

The original post was from 2012 and back alley indicates he now has several lenses faster than f/2.5. Time moves on and things always change.

Personally, I've always been fond of fast lenses even though I almost always stop down a bit from maximum--bokeh is not often a priority for me. When using SLRs, fast lenses meant a little brighter viewfinder and that proved helpful as my eyes aged. These days, with EVFs and separate optical viewfinders in my cameras, lens speed is less important for viewing. Although I have a few lenses faster than f/2, they weren't bought for the speed but for their optical quality.

 

[Darshan]

While I have a few lenses faster than 2.5, I will be perfectly happy with 2.8 or 3.5 even. I almost never shoot at max aperture and have never bought a fast lens for its speed.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

I have f/2.0 manual focus lenses in 35mm, 50mm and 85mm focal lengths for my Pentax and Nikon systems.
The large aperture allows selective focus and the brighter image makes SLR focusing somewhat easier.

OTOH I have never felt the need for anything faster than the 35mm f/2.5 lens on my RF camera.

Chris