I recently tested two new pieces of equipment for a headshot photoshoot and in this post I’ll talk about what I discovered from this experience.

I loaned from my university the Canon 50mm 1.8 lens

I purchased the Selens Light Reflector

Reflector

I’ve Wanted to try a reflector for a few years now but hadn’t been doing enough portrait photography to justify the purchase, however as I now pursue photography as a means of income I felt it was time to ‘invest’. I put this in quote marks because I did get one of the cheapest options.

I do prefer location shoots and often work without assistance so I needed to get a small reflector. From my research a 30cm one was too small to be effective on models- my understanding is that it would be better suited to product photography. But since my focus is portraiture I opted for a 60cm size.

I found this to be manageable in terms of holding and storing, I also found it to be mostly affective in bouncing the light back to the model’s face.

As for the material quality of this product I felt it to be sturdy and well made- the mechanism for folding it back up feels safe and I didn’t feel scared to snap it. So overall would recommend this product.

I look forward to testing this reflector out on future photoshoots and learning more about the different effects of the varying sheet covers.

Lens overview

My first reaction to the lens when I’d put it on my camera was “aww it’s tiny!” I find small things very cute, so I was made to smile by the compact size of this lens.

My second observation was the beautifully polite focusing sound, or lack thereof. There is of course a noise made by the focusing, but compared to my 18-55mm, the 50 was silent. I’m yet to use my lens since taking back the 50, so there may be a shock when I hear that focusing ‘record scratch’ sound again.

Overall, I was very pleased with the performance of this lens. I’m not entirely knowledgeable about lenses and the science of their technology, but I figure that set to a certain point my 18-55 will function in the same way as the 50- but it felt like this 50mm lens was entirely new. I felt that I had crisper and more dynamic images that I so far haven’t felt able to create in my usual setup.
I may find that going back to my 18-55 I’ve got a better understanding of settings and can make that zoom length work more to how I want the images to look. Or I may find myself missing the nifty fifty…

If I am hired to do headshots again, I will strongly consider loaning this lens out. Obviously, I will always give my clients the best I can offer.

The above three images are just varying zoom ins of the first shot, as opposed to me physically getting closer to the model- to illustrate the deficit of sharp focus.

I got excited by the larger range of f-stop allowing for a more blurred background in comparison to subject- however I found this somewhat hard to control because the focus on the nose would be brilliant and sharp but even so slightly back as the eyes would be less sharp. Still ‘in focus’ but noticeably less so. I found that to take a wider shot of the model (chest up) I had to reduce the background blur so that more of their face was sharp. This was something I struggled with throughout the shoot and did lose some nice images due to my experimentation with the f-stop.

Following my second portrait shoot using this lens I think I developed a stronger understanding of the lens’ function but will of course improve further the more I use it.