Tustin Police Department Open House, Jun. 2015

Tustin Police Department had its annual Open House on June 13th, 2015. The open house that police departments, fire departments, etc. hold across the country every year is a great tradition indeed. Not only is it a free fun event for kids, it does raise awareness about many safety precautions as well as the challenges that the policemen, fire fighters, etc. face every day. Don’t miss it if there is one in your area, particularly if you have smaller kids.

Like any such event, we had our camera with us. For this one, we took our Nikon D4 along with our Nikon 58mm f/1.4G. This is a lens that we have recently acquired. It is thought to be the modern version of the classic but still sought after Nikon 58mm f/1.2 Noct. If you read the many reviews online for 58mm f/1.4G, you will notice that it has caused some controversy and debate over sharpness versus rendering/character of the lens. Here is one of many good reviews. The issue is that this lens is a specialty lens with larger than usual field curvature. According to Nikon marketing material, they wanted to make a lens that would provide for a 3D-like rendering with very pleasant out-of-focus areas (bokeh). In doing so, they seem to have had to sacrifice a bit on wide open sharpness, and that is why some photographers who value sharpness above anything else may not be too happy with this lens. This is why we were initially a bit hesitant too on buying this lens. In reality, however, the true value of a picture, as a piece of art, is rarely determined by its critical sharpness alone. It is true that Nikon 58mm f/1.4G is not critically sharp when shot wide open at f/1.4, particularly at minimum focusing distance (MFD), but it does produce aesthetically pleasing images, thanks to a very pleasing bokeh together with beautiful transition from sharp to soft as well as very nice color rending straight out of camera, resulting overall in a somewhat unique characteristic for the image. We have been happy with our pictures with this lens so far. But lets not forget that any lens is just a tool after all, and like any tool, the user has to know its powers and limitations and put it to use only in situations where it could work best.

Anyway, back to the Police Dept. Open House, here are a few random shots from our visit today. Our son sure had a lot of fun getting on a police car, fire truck, army truck, ambulance, you name it!

One challenge with shooting events like these is to avoid the crowd in an attempt to find simple backgrounds in order to properly isolate your main subject. This is one area where the shallow Depth of Field (DoF) associated with fast lenses (i.e., at large apertures) proves invaluable, helping one to blur the people and other distractions in the background to the degree possible.

Thanks for visiting…