see this confuses me I get that less is in focus at lower apertures, but why are prime lenses so nice at f/1.4 and stuff, if they are truly sharp at f/2 why would you want the f/1.4, for just in case you need to take a picture in the dark, and don't care about focus? That seems a bit ridiculous.
The DoF is
razor thin and the bokeh is incredible. It's a very desirable effect for portraits, but 1.2 might be a bit overboard for some. 1.4 is typically what pros will shoot at, and (this is speculation on my end) because the lenses are harder to manufacture (on a 50 1.2 vs a 50 1.8 the aperture itself is 1.5x as large, so a typical 27.7mm aperture on a 50/1.8 now needs to open to 47.55mm), better quality glass is used in the manufacturing. This leads to all around better pictures, even in natural light.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianreiter/934619415/lightbox/Again, this effect isn't always desirable, and as strange as it seems you need to work harder to control what's going on in the background if it's
thoroughly bokeh-fied. Her sister in that shot would look a little less ridiculous if she were less blurred. They don't need to be both in focus, but if her sister were a bit more in focus that shot would look better, imo.
All in all, for portraits especially, you want to have phat bokeh to get good looking pictures.
And, the more light you let in, the... nicer, pictures usually end up looking. I'm not entirely sure why, but under natural light they just end up looking so much nicer at much lower apertures.
Sirrus, mostly reassuring myself. I wasn't a 100% sure, but I was quite sure. I'm not that new to this anymore, but I didn't think it would hurt to make sure.
I suppose so.
