photos sc state fair oct 2018 17204The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford

I added a Nikon 85mm f/1.4 D lens to my kit last year for portrait work. It’s the older version that was in production from 1995-2010 and I picked it up off of eBay for $650. It’s not a versatile lens by any means, and most of the time it sits in a drawer with my backup lenses and flashes.

For the non photo nerds, one of its main features is the ability to produce images with a really shallow depth of field.

But that also means there’s no room for error in your execution of proper focusing. It’s what those nerds might call fast glass. And since I spent most of my day waiting in the Kia service lounge yesterday, escaping only when the they gave up, I needed a stress relief. Which meant picking up my camera and going to the fair with with one lens. The one I use the least.

All the images here were shot with that 85mm at f1.4, in aperture priority mode while using exposure compensation. Photos and words by Sean Rayford

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photos sc state fair oct 2018 16502The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 16664The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 16615The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 17100The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 16541The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford   photos sc state fair oct 2018 16782The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 17350The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 17076The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 17268The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford photos sc state fair oct 2018 16932The South Carolina State Fair - Oct 16, 2018 in Columbia, SC. Photo by Columbia SC photographer Sean Rayford Read more South Carolina photo stories at SodaCitizen.com

Soda Citizen photography columbia sc 00009South Carolina photographer Sean Rayford - Columbia, SC