There are many advantages of using a 50mm lens in photography. I will explain why it is the best lens in many situations.
Advantages of a 50mm lens
- It has a wider aperture, so excellent in low light
- A 50mm lens is versatile, can be used for many types of photography
- It is small and lightweight
- 50 mm lenses have less moving parts, therefore they produce sharp images
- It has minimum distortion
- A 50mm lens gives you a normal field of view on full-frame cameras
- It is affordable and readily available
50mm prime lenses are fast lenses with a wide maximum aperture. The most basic 50mm lenses are typically F1.8. That means the aperture opening can open very wide and allow more light into the camera’s sensor. This allows you to take great photos in low-light.
A 50mm prime lens allows more than four times the amount of light into the camera’s sensor than a consumer-grade kit zoom lens that comes with your DSLR camera. This enables the use of lower ISO sensitivity and faster shutter speeds so you can freeze motion and eliminate camera shake. It is one of the main advantages of a 50mm lens.
It is a great lens to photograph at events such as weddings, corporate events, and stage concerts.
On a full-frame digital camera, a 50mm prime lens gives a similar field of view to our own eyes. That means, you can get images very similar to what you see in real life. That is why a 50mm lens called a normal lens. The normal field of view makes the lens a good choice for photojournalism.
Lenses of other focal lengths tend to distort the scenes in the images that they produce. Objects that are closet to the camera appear big when shot with a wide-angle lens. When you photograph with telephoto lenses, the subject and background will appear close to each other.
Many of the leading camera manufacturers such as Canon, Nikon, and Sony have different types of 50mm lenses. However, the entry-level 50mm F1.8 lens is cheap and good enough to produce outstanding images.
50mm lenses are one of the lightweight and sharpest lenses on the market. They are easy to produce with fewer glass elements and less moving parts. That makes them sharp, small, light and easy to carry. This allows you to have a very compact setup which is ideal for travel and street photography.
When you attach a 50mm lens to a cropped sensor camera, you will get a field of view of 75-80mm. This is a great focal length for taking portraits.
The wide aperture of a 50mm lens can also provide shallow depth of field. This gives you the ability to blur out backgrounds and focus attention on your main subject. A wide aperture also gives attractive out-of-focus highlights also known as bokeh. Combining the shallow depth of field with a pleasing bokeh can result in some very professional-looking portraits.
When you begin to use fixed focal length lenses such as a 50mm prime lens, you will think creatively about your composition. That will help improve your composition techniques.
Is a 50mm lens good for macro photography?
50 mm lens is not a very good lens for macro photography, but if you are low on budget then you can use the lens to take amazing close-up or macro photos with it.
You need to pair the lens with an extension tube to do that. Extension tubes are cheaper than a dedicated macro lens. They don’t have glass elements, so they don’t reduce the image quality.
A 50mm prime lens is a must-have piece of equipment for anyone starting out in photography. It’s versatile, affordable and great for shooting all types of photos. That is why it called a nifty fifty lens.
About the author: Victor is a freelance photographer, technophile, and founder of vxanswers.com.