What 50mm lens should i buy

On a full frame camera, the field of view of your trusty 50mm prime lens looks very similar to how we see with the human eye. If you put your open hands at the side of your head like side blinders, the edge of your hands is the limit to the frame on a 50mm lens.

The magnification is literally the same. So what you see is what you get with the 50mm photography. What this means is…. With the beautiful shallow depth of field you can get fantastic, naturally lit portraits that will look more like the professional images you see on the web.

If you are a portrait photographer, here are some tips for taking interesting portraits. At f1. This helps you become more adventurous with your composition. This image has only the two small leaves on the right in focus, but still works as the background is just a beautiful wash of colour and shape.

And with the wide aperture, you will be able to shoot in streetlight! The Nikon 50mm 1. You can also still buy the Nikon 50mm 1. If you are willing to buy second-hand or refurbished, you can pick up the old 50mm lens for almost half the price of a new 1. Leaving your camera on its default settings will produce blurry results. Share with friends Share. Show Comments 0 Hide Comments. Related Articles. How to Use a Color Checker in Photography One of the recent additions to my photographic workflow is a color checker.

This helps me figure out how to color match reality with my…. How And When! It can be a great time-saving tool for both…. What are Lens Aberrations? Removing lens aberration is a big deal for…. See all articles in Beginner Photography. These are available for just about every brand of camera, including Canon and Nikon shown above , and if you buy used, you save even more money. In fact, with such large apertures, these are among the best 50mm lenses you can buy.

That means you can get even more bang for your buck and add a top-notch lens to your camera bag without breaking the bank. I talk about the low price and many other attributes of 50mm lenses in the video above. Check it out! The kit lens that came with your camera isn't exactly huge, but many 50mm lenses are much more compact than even the kit lens.

That compactness is nice for situations in which you can't really wield a large lens. Street photography comes to mind as a great situation for a 50mm lens because it allows you to move amongst the crowd with greater ease. The great thing about prime lenses like the 50mm is that they have fewer internal elements than a zoom lens. With fewer elements inside the lens, that means that they can take photos that are sharper and clearer.

If you were to compare an image taken with a 50mm lens side-by-side with an image taken with a kit zoom lens, you'd see a marked difference in the sharpness. Beyond that, 50mm lenses often have better color rendition and less chromatic aberration than kit lenses, so you not only get sharper photos but ones with more accurate colors too.

Start the day taking landscape photos at sunrise. Move to your backyard in late morning to take photos of the kids. Head to the city in the afternoon for architecture photos. The point is that it is a great walk around or travel lens because it can help you photograph anything from your dog to mountains to macro subjects and everything in between. When it comes to adding accessories to your camera bag that pack a punch, it's hard to beat a 50mm lens. Another aspect of the versatility of 50mm lenses is that many of them work on both full frame and crop sensor cameras.

For example, if you started out shooting with a Canon T3i and decide to upgrade to a Canon EOS 6D shown above , you don't have to buy a new lens. It also can provide fantastic out of focus backgrounds and bokeh. As I mentioned already each genre of photography requires different techniques and different equipment.

Pros do not use the one-size-fits-all lenses, they have a different lens for each thing they shoot. For example:. Read: How to choose the right lens. So wide for a full-frame camera is in the mm range, and mm for cropped sensor cameras. A wide angle lens allows you to get speeding vistas of the landscape, and also enhance perspective by making that little flower near the camera seem large while the mountains in the background seem comparatively smaller.

Sports photographers have to spend the big bucks to get long telephoto lenses with large apertures. This type of lens allows you to shoot action and freeze it by using a large aperture, fast shutter speed combination. This focal length is necessary as you cannot usually get close enough to the action to get good shots otherwise.

Being five feet from that bear in the wild — probably not the best plan! Some pros also use Teleconverters which can double or 1. This is where you will actually have an advantage if you are NOT using a full-frame camera as your smaller sensor replicates about a 1.

Bonus right?! Macro photographers use a camera lens that is designed to focus closer. One that is designed to focus closer and provide at least a size relationship of the subject meaning life size. Most lenses do not focus in at close range so manufactures make special macro micro in Nikon terms lenses that do just that. They can also be used as a regular lens or for other things such at the Canon mm Macro, which is also a great portrait lens.

I love this lens! The last two were actually taken in the classroom of one of my Available Light classes here in Edmonton. But how far do you need to go, do you need full-frame?

I challenge you on that belief. Who do you think will have better images?