If you are just starting your photographic journey, there is one lens you must have on your camera as often as possible. It’s a 50mm prime lens. It has a fixed focal length (in other words it’s not a zoom lens) and it’s known as the ‘nifty fifty’ because it handles so many situations with ease. Here are some of the top advantages that make it a ‘must-have’ lens.
1. What you see is what you get with this lens. On a full-frame camera, the 50mm lens gives a similar field of view to your eyes, so when you look at a scene you know exactly how the camera is going to photograph it. There is hardly any distortion, so you capture the view that’s in your eyes and in your mind.
2. No tripod? No worries! This lens has a wide aperture that allows you to shoot in low light. When the lens is wide open you can keep the shutter speed settings at a reasonable rate, so you won’t have blurred photos from camera shake. Its small size means it’s easy to hold the camera steady. This makes golden hour portrait shots possible, and photographing indoors is less demanding on the ISO. A 50mm prime lens sends much more light to the camera’s sensor than a basic zoom lens, and it has greater clarity too.
3. It’s cheap but good. Compared to a standard zoom lens, the 50mm prime has a very simple design, so manufacturing costs are reasonable. With fewer parts involved, it is much less expensive than a zoom lens, and it produces better results. All 50mm lenses have large apertures offering a shallow depth of field. This gives the blurred, artistic background effect loved by portrait photographers.
4. Multiple uses are available when you attach this lens to your camera. Being so light and small it’s easy to carry around all day. The longer you have to carry around your camera, the more you will value how compact and robust this lens is. It’s a great walk-around lens, especially since it’s useful for everything from portraits to landscapes. It’s a discreet lens for street photography and travel photos because it’s not too bulky. It won’t get in people’s way as you compose your shot amongst a crowd. Using it on an APS-C camera turns the 50mm lens into an 85mm telephoto, so it gets you closer to subjects at a distance.
5. When combined with their razor-sharp detail and edge-of-frame clarity, it’s no wonder this lens is a favorite with photographers. And having fewer internal elements than a zoom lens means the light has a more direct path to the sensor, giving you photos that are crisp, bright, and colorful.
If you have to choose only one lens to go on your camera, seriously consider the 50mm lens. This is a prime lens that can lift all types of photography to a new level. Don’t let its simplicity fool you. It packs a powerful photographic punch while being great value for money.
