30 Days with the Fuji 35mm f2: Day Twenty-Six

On my way home from a photo walk the other day, I was drawn to the lighting and mood of this entryway. I was shooting handheld, so I knew that I’d be pushing the limits of the lens and the camera a bit to grab this shot.

On a couple occasions during this project, I’ve found myself wishing for image stabilization on the 35mm f2. It really makes a difference in scenes like this when there’s very little/no subject movement because it allows you to slow down your shutter speed an extra couple stops without introducing blur. This in turn allows for either a smaller aperture (for more depth of field and sharpness) and/or a lower ISO (for less grain). The rule of thumb for what kind of shutter speed is acceptable for handheld shots is generally using a denominator that’s 1-2 times the focal length of the lens on a 35mm/full frame equivalent camera. That means that, in order for me to feel reasonably comfortable that I’ll get a non-blurry image with this lens, I should shoot at a shutter speed of at the very least 1/53s (in this case, I shot at 1/40s and got a little lucky that there wasn’t really any blur). If the lens had image stabilization, though, I’d be able to push that at least another stop (to roughly 1/26s)…oh well, this lens is still pretty phenomenal without image stabilization and adding it would add some weight and cost. It’s all a balancing act.