Summer solstice as come and gone, and apparently I’m already worried about a lack of light. You wouldn’t think so, since I like low-light photography so much (see my favorites here.) But I’ve found that I was missing a lot of good shots in poor quality light, certainly indoors, but also as dusk.
And so I got a new lens — one that is primarily designed to make the most of available light. (The Nikon 50mm 1.4 AFS). It’s pretty wild. It lets in four times the amount of light as my next “fastest” lens. It might be a little too good: the resulting shots frequently don’t appear to have been taken in bad light at all.
And yet, almost all of the shots on in this entry would not have been possible with my other lenses. Sure, I could have taken them, but they would have been blurred because the shutter would have needed to stay open half a second or more in order to collect sufficient light.
The last one on this page takes a little explanation. It’s a roll of paper towels on our dining table. The left side is illuminated by a candle, and the right side by ambient outside light  (10:30 pm). It’s not as sharp as it could be, but still impressive considering it’s a hand-held shot.
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