50mm prime at night

We went to see the National Christmas tree over the weekend. I took the 50mm to see how it did at night. The results were mixed, but I have a feeling that's partly because of the operator ;) I think some of them were lucky shots, but I learned a lot.

I didn't use flash on any of the shots. I put the specs above each. I realized when taking note of all the specs that I should have tried to up the ISO on some of them. Why not? Test the Rebel XT and see what it can really do. If I'm trying to figure out which body to upgrade to, I need to know where my current equipment is lacking.

First, Ye old tree. It was a little... lumpy-looking. And it had a growth on its side at the bottom, ha. Let's just say, a little less than impressive. But it was fun to see the tree for each state/territory, and lots of the buildings in the district were decorated as well, so that was cool. And there was a yule log! Specs: 1/160, F1.8, ISO 400:

M&J were great sports and put up with my many attempts at photos of them. I'm also pleased with this one, though there's a bit of blur when blown up (camera shake, I'm sure). If I could re-do this shot, I would up the ISO to 800 and see if I could have stopped down a little while still allowing a faster shutter speed, which hopefully would have resulted in less blur. Ah. This was taken right beside the big tree. The smaller tree behind them is the one for Virginia. Specs: 1/5, f2.2, ISO 400:

You can't really see them, but there were two Christmas trees on the "back porch" of the White House, on either side of the door. Specs: 1/60, f1.8, ISO 400:

This was back at M&J's place, with their lovely Christmas tree in the background! Specs: 1/40, f2.5, ISO 800:

Had to give this shot a try. I love M's reflection on the shiny part of the ornament. Specs: 1/50, f2.5, ISO 800:

Then M got super-excited about my camera and we ran around her house pulling interesting-looking things off the shelves to shoot. The chess set did well -- some of hers are even better than this one :) Specs: 1/10, f3.5, ISO 800:

Their black dining table made for some nice reflections.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with how the lens did outdoors at night -- as long as there was enough light to light my subject even just a little bit, I could usually get the shot. I realize I could definitely have done much better with it if I had some flash equipment (& the knowledge to use it), but I'm not into night photography enough to make the purchase(s) worth it. Besides, I already know what lens I want next, which is bad, because it'll be a little while before I can afford another one :)

Fun weekend!