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What do you do when a given lens is too long for some situations (small rooms, too crowded or no range) but has such a large aperture that it is the only way to do pictures w/o flash? Well, you try to find another lens close to that one.

It happened just a few times too many that the FA-50mm/f1.4 is too long and I also shot with a friend's FA-31mm/f1.8 Limited too many times to ignore the pull.

I turned down the option of the Limited series because it is probably the most expensive of the FA Limited lenses (around 1100 € is France, 740 € in Canada) and I've found that a less known lens, the FA-35mm/f2 is according to Photozone almost as good (and even better sometimes) but at a quarter of its price. One loses half a stop but you can't have everything.

You can compare with the FA-31mm/f1.8 Ltd here.

So I went to eBay and bought this nice FA lens, 308 US$, 200 €. Comes with a hood (none on the FA-50 unfortunately), almost as small as the FA-50, fast AF, very nice image quality, I'm happy.