It’s been months now since I ditched my zoom lenses in favour of primes. It took a little getting used to as I admit zoom lenses are convenient, but I’ve never looked back.

My two favourite lenses are my 50mm f1.4 and my 135mm f1.8. These two are used for over over 80% of my photography, and I’ve found that not having the flexibility that I had previously using two zooms (a 28-70mm and a 70-210mm) really hasn’t been an issue for the kind of photography that I do.

Most of the photographs I take are either of interiors, outdoor scenes or people. Whereas with a zoom lens I would turn the zoom ring to frame the shot, I now think a little more about composition and physically move the camera, or the subject, in order to get the shot I require. Admittedly this wouldn’t work with sports photography, or wildlife, but that’s not what I do so isn’t an issue.

My most used lens out of the two I’ve just mentioned is the standard 50mm lens, and the more I use it the more I appreciate it. The 50mm lens has been somewhat neglected in the last few years, but I would urge any DLSR owner to pick one up and rediscover the joys it has to offer.

An example of a blurred background. Image taken with a standard lens wide open at f1.4, cropped square.

• Maximum aperture – a standard lens with an aperture of f1.4 gives beautiful results in available light, and allows you to blur backgrounds in a way you’ll never manage with an f3.5 zoom. You have to be careful with focussing in such a limited depth of field, but the results can be really worth it – see the example on the right.

• Superior image quality – a 50mm prime lens is quite possibly one of the sharpest lenses that any camera manufacturer has to offer. Extremely simple design, tried and tested formula and tremendous image quality.

• Lightweight – if you’re used to carting around a reasonably fast mini zoom then you’ll really appreciate the weight (or rather lack of) of a standards lens.

• Bright viewfinder – the large maximum aperture gives a nice, bright viewfinder, which in turn gives you a much more responsive autofocus.

• Field of view – not too far off the field of view of the human eye, the 50mm lens gives a wonderful, natural perspective. It’s because of this natural perspective that the 50mm lens is often called a ‘standard’ lens.

• Cost – you can pick up a Canon or Nikon 50mm prime lens for around the £100 mark. A bargain!

There are many great photographers who have used the humble 50mm standard lens almost exclusively throughout their entire career, and I would heartily recommend picking one up and giving it a go if you haven’t already. Getting back to basics is often a good thing, and I’ve found that having a fixed focal length lens has really improved my photography. I do give a lot more thought to the composition now when framing the shot in the camera viewfinder.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Technique. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.