On May 15th – 17th, the city of Miamisburg Ohio held their annual Springfest in the Burg.  The city is down a tremendous amount of revitalization work to the downtown Miamisburg area and they really do a nice job with this event – it seems to grow in scope and attendance every year.

This year I decided to use the event as a photo taking exercise and forced myself to only shoot with my Voigtländer 50mm f1.0.  Fans of ThruMyLens who have read my review know I have a love-hate relationship with the lens.  50mm is just not my focal length jam, but the lens is just so darn nice that I do enjoy using it from time to time.

being an older city, downtown Miamisburg can be tricky to navigate during the best of times.  But during their Springfest In The Burg festival it’s particularly difficult.  So I got downtown about an hour before the festival started and found a great parking spot.  I then decided to wander around downtown into Miamisburg’s charming little shops  and eateries to take some photos:

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.2

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f2

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f2.8

Interestingly, even though the 50mm focal length can frustrate me, I never feel more creative than when I’m shooting at 50mm.  Historically, I’ve done mostly photojournalism – my instinct is to try to frame the story.  And that’s not always the best use of a 50mm lens.  When used correctly, it’s magical.  And as you can see from the above photos, the Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 is an absolute bokeh beast – the manual focus experience is a joy.

After about an hour ff wandering around and photo taking I headed to the festival area down by the riverfront.  The bright colors of the carnival rides in vendor tents made for some great photos, and also challenged me from a composition standpoint.  Since I tend to shoot fairly wide open, I shot with my K&F Concepts combination VND +CPL filter on my lens.

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.8

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.9

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.2

Canon R5 Mark II/Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 @f1.4

The Voigtländer 50mm f1.0 was the perfect lens for this outing.  I really leaned into the natural vignette it produces which helped to enhance the colorful photos with some gorgeous sky gradients.

This was a great experiment for me and a great reminder that I’ve advanced considerably in my photographic journey.  Creativity does not come naturally to me.  As a photojournalist, I tend to naturally want to take the picture that’s in front of me to tell the story.  But I’m getting better at finding creative ways to make art.