50 mm lens

Hi

I'm a photographer, and this is why I use a 50mm lens for everything. I am a wedding photographer primarily, but I also shoot portraits, fashion, and a myriad of other things. The 50mm lens is by far my most used lens. If you are looking to buy a prime lens and you don't know what to buy first, this is absolutely the one you should buy.

Now, most manufacturers make some kind of prime lens especially in that 50mm range. I know some of that might be 55 or 52, I don't actually know too much about it because I have shot a Nikon my entire life, but a 50mm lens can be used for almost everything. Here's what you can shoot with a 50mm lens.

Number one, you can shoot portraits.

The 50mm lens is great for portraits of individual people as well as couples which is mostly what I'm shooting on a wedding day. You can get in close, you can back up, you can get full length, you can get 3/4. You can even get beautiful face shots with a 50mm lens. Like what you're seeing so far?

You don't have to stick with just individual and couple portraits with the 50, you can also shoot groups. When I'm shooting family photos, or at the church, or in a park, I like to use a 50mm lens to add a little bit of compression. I can get a ton of people in the photo in a somewhat tight space, but it makes them look more together when you're using a 50mm lens versus a 35 or a 24. A 50 is also great for shooting details.

Shoot details of a table scape, shoot details of invitation, shoes, even jewellery, and some kind of lay flat. The 50 is my go-to for all of my morning prep pictures, all my detailed pictures in the morning, as well as all of my reception pictures at night. The 50 is great for landscapes too. Don't just think that because you're shooting a large area that you have to use a wide lens. You really don't.

I shoot nighttime photos and room scape with a 50mm. When you're using a prime lens which means that it's a fixed focal length, in other words, you can't zoom in or out, it seems like something that's tedious but you can always zoom with your feet, right, go closer and further away. It seems like more work, but trust me you're going to get a much more crisp image out of a prime lens typically versus a zoom lens. Another great thing about a prime lens is that it has a really low aperture in most cases. This gives you a more shallow depth of field giving you that nice, soft, dreamy background, beautiful bokeh. And it also lets you draw the viewer's attention to a certain point of focus. Now, this can make it a little bit more difficult to focus but also with prime lenses is usually the ability to focus faster. If you purchase your brand's top end prime lens it's usually a very fast focusing lens.

The 50mm, at least in the Nikon line, is probably one of the fastest focusing lenses in the lineup. Which is another reason I like to use it because I can focus very quickly during a family photo session, and it's not difficult to photograph at night.

Overall, the 50mm lens is super versatile. You can use it pretty much for anything. If I had one lens to take with me on a wedding day and I couldn't have anything else, this would be it.

I use a 50mm or I can use a 50mm for anything, except macro shots, but let's not go there yet.