With a typical 18-55mm kit lens, the widest available aperture of f/5.6 would give you a depth of field of 36cm. Let's assume you're taking a portrait from a distance of two metres, using a focal length of 50mm (75mm effective).
#Nifty 50 lens plus#
Again, this is another plus point for portrait photography, but how does it work out in practical terms? This is absolutely perfect for portraiture, as it enables you to keep an ideal distance from the person you're photographing, so that they can feel comfortable and relaxed, without the camera being too up close and personal.Īnother helpful by-product of shooting with a 50mm lens on an APS-C format body is that, along with the increased, effective focal length, the depth of field is further reduced. However, due to the crop factor of cameras with APS-C format image sensors, a 50mm lens has an effective focal length of 75mm (80mm if you're using a Canon SLR). You see a composition you like, lift the camera to your eye, and shoot without the complexity of adjusting zoom length. It gives a nice immediacy to your photography. This is because, historically, they give a natural perspective on 35mm film cameras - and the same is therefore true on full-frame digital SLRs. It's particularly good for portraiture, opening a whole new window of opportunity for many SLR owners, which we'll come to next.Ī 50mm lens is often referred to as a standard lens. It's great when you want to blur fussy backgrounds (or foregrounds) and make the main object in a composition really stand out. The wider aperture gives you a massive reduction in depth of field. There's still one thing that a fast prime lens can do that you can't replicate with a typical zoom.
#Nifty 50 lens how to#
SEE MORE: 11 common lens errors (and how to avoid them)
#Nifty 50 lens iso#
The requirement for fast shutter speeds in handheld shooting is no longer paramount, unless you need to freeze the action of people or objects that are moving around.Įven then, given that current DSLRs tend to offer such good image quality at high sensitivity settings, there's always the option of bumping up the ISO when you need faster shutter speeds. Most kit zoom lenses now have image stabilisation built in, or it's available in camera bodies from the likes of Pentax and Sony. So what's so good about having a faster standard 50mm prime lens? For one thing, it enables faster shutter speeds, which can be useful in dull shooting conditions.įor example, where gloomy lighting using the widest available aperture of a kit zoom lens would only enable shooting at, say, 1/15 of a second at ISO 100, a 50mm f/1.4 lens would enable a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second. But the biggest drawback, shared by all but the most expensive standard zoom lenses, is that the widest available aperture at focal lengths of around 50mm and beyond is about f/5.6. Vignetting (darkened image corners) can also be problematic, especially when combining short focal lengths with wide apertures.
While kit zoom lenses and higher-quality standard zooms like the Canon 15-85mm and Nikon 16-85mm can offer good sharpness, distortions can still be a problem. You can't beat the versatility of a zoom lens, but the compromise usually comes in terms of image quality.
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