[Michael Piziak]

Anyone that's read a fair amount of photographic magazines, journals, or websites have certainly come across dozens of articles and 1,001 reasons why the 50mm prime is, or should be, in every camera bag.

Instead of rehashing the many reason(s) that you agree with, as to why you think the nifty fifty is a must have lens for an SLR photographer at any level, please share your thoughts here.

Personally, I'm using this thread as a learning tool (myself). I'm a bit curious as to the reasons why real people like to have and use a nifty 50. Other than the fact that a prime lens is nearly always sharper, there's got to be more to this - as many zoom lens cover the 50mm focal length... Case in point: I've owned the kit 18-55mm lens for over a decade, as well as the 55-300mm Pentax zoom lens. I love macro photography and a M 100mm Pentax macro lens has been my most used lens; however, I recently picked up an M 50mm Pentax macro lens - initially buying it so it could become my prime nifty fifty (somehow I'm waiting on it to find its way into becoming my own complete focal lens). I guess I could go read another 1,001 reasons why to, but I'd rather hear from you guys/gals real experiences with this prime focal length...

---

Last edited by Michael Piziak; 09-29-2021 at 06:17 AM.

[pepperberry farm]

I disagree whole-heartedly that the 50mm is the most complete lens....

gimme a 55mm or a 58mm or a 40mm anyway....

[Michael Piziak]

I disagree whole-heartedly that the 50mm is the most complete lens....

gimme a 55mm or a 58mm or a 40mm anyway....

Perhaps you could elaborate just a bit....

[termy]

Pentax gave the world the 43mm prime.

Gimme that one anytime, over a nifty-fifty.

Cuz that is a even niftier forty-three.

[pepperberry farm]

Perhaps you could elaborate just a bit....

just my own personal viewpoint.. I'm not a fan of the bog-standard 50mm lens....

[Andrea K]

50mm is my most hated lens, I have five

[pepperberry farm]

50mm is my most hated lens, I have five

ditto... I only have eight of them....

[FozzFoster]

I've recently began shooting film cameras (coming from digital).
It really breaths new life into FA 50mm f/1.4.
My DA 35 LTD and DA 40 LTD don't have an aperture ring.
My lens choice for film is my 24mm, 50mm, and 77mm (pretty decent kit, really).

The FA 50mm f/1.4 is an excellent lens for it's caliber.
The used market for this lens is super healthy and a used one can be had for about 1/4 the price of brand new.
Although this lens isn't as optically corrected as the DFA* 50 1.4, this film-era lens is still certainly a stunner on both digital and film.
I'll say, the 50mm focal length is definitely better at portraits on APS-C. On film cameras, it's more of a basic standard walk around lens.

[Serkevan]

On APS-C, 50mm is a lovely short tele lens, and on top of the good sharpness and (for the Pentax 50/1.7 at least) great rendering, these lenses typically have a relatively short MFD so their close-up ability is quite good.

However, on full frame I find the length to always be either too long or too short, and never "just right". Therefore, I'm significantly happier with the FA 43mm, which is wide enough to be a "do everything" lens without being so wide that portraits become a complicated matter.

[jatrax]

Other than the fact that a prime lens is nearly always sharper

Not really a 'fact', just common assumption. Often true, but certainly not always.

I have carried a 50mm f/1.4 in my bag for years. Maybe used it once or twice. Good quality, modern zooms are just as good IMHO, and far more versatile. YMMV.

[Wheatfield]

I happen to quite like standard lenses, probably because I shot for the better part of 10 years with only a 50mm lens and had to figure out how to make it work.
It's possible that had my camera come with a wide angle, I would feel the same way about 35mm lenses.
One thing I found was when I was shooting weddings, it was important to the end product to not have the pictures looking "lensy" for lack of a better term. A 24mm lens, for example, might be nice, but the wonky perspective distortions that it gives can make for pictures that look off to the customer. It was important to keep things looking like what the customer sees. The real wide angles were saved for pictures in the limousine, the long telephotos were used from the back of the church to capture some aspects of the ceremony without being a disruption, but the standard lens shot nearly all my pictures.

---------- Post added Sep 29th, 2021 at 09:18 AM ----------

Not really a 'fact', just common assumption. Often true, but certainly not always.

I have carried a 50mm f/1.4 in my bag for years. Maybe used it once or twice. Good quality, modern zooms are just as good IMHO, and far more versatile. YMMV.

My new Pentax 70-210 is a nice, sharp lens, but it is terrible to the point of being useless at apertures wider than f/4.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

"I'm a bit curious as to the reasons why real people like to have and use a nifty 50". Hmmm.... what would unreal people think about a 50mm?

When I bought my first SLR, a Zenit B it had a small 50mm on it, the successor the EM had a 55mm. Then I bought an ME/MEsuper and they had that small M 50 f1.7 coming with it. The super A came with the A 50mm F1.4 and my SFX came with a F 50mm 1.4. Although I am perfectly capable of eating by myself this is the lens that you got spooned in when starting to take pictures with an SLR. You get used to that view and for me it felt natural to take all my pictures with it. 50mm: Canon got it, Minolta got it, Nikon got it and all the others like Chinon and Praktica got it. I loved all the pictures I made with it.They told me that FOV of 50mm is almost the same as your own eye and it is that that makes it feel so natural when using it.

[jatrax]

My new Pentax 70-210 is a nice, sharp lens, but it is terrible to the point of being useless at apertures wider than f/4.

It probably doesn't work very well at 50mm either...........

For those that need wide apertures a good fast prime is the solution. I don't use wide apertures for much of anything except some occasional landscape / astro shots. So for me, a fast prime is nothing but a status symbol. I have one, I carry one, and I only pull it out when some Canon shooter is bragging about their 50mm f/1.8, Otherwise my 24-70 f/2.8 works just fine, thank you.

[Wheatfield]

It probably doesn't work very well at 50mm either...........

For those that need wide apertures a good fast prime is the solution. I don't use wide apertures for much of anything except some occasional landscape / astro shots. So for me, a fast prime is nothing but a status symbol. I have one, I carry one, and I only pull it out when some Canon shooter is bragging about their 50mm f/1.8, Otherwise my 24-70 f/2.8 works just fine, thank you.

I suppose that my not caring about what other photographers have to say about my choice of gear might then speak to my liking of prime lenses, and the standard lens in particular?

[vector]

I used to shoot only zooms. I had the FA 50mm F1.4, but I basically never used it. After I got my K1 I stuck with zooms. So convenient and decent enough image quality. At some point after doing some "research" (watching photographers on youtube) I decided to try and figure out what the fuss was about. I basically hated 50mm. At that point all my experience with it was on APSC. So I put that FA 50mm F1.4 on and left it there even going to locations in the mountains where normally I would love to have had a zoom. At first it felt off and restrictive but after being forced to find nice shots using only a 50mm I realized I liked the end result photos much better. Shooting with only a single focal length was pushing me to actually try for better composition. I started to realize that my photos were better for what I was cutting out of the scene than what I used to try and include. The advantage of being able to shoot at F1.4 also opened up lots of creative options. I know every zoom shooter makes the claim their zoom is as good as any prime. I'm sorry but it just isn't true. I also know from experience that when I go back to my zooms, my lazy shooting habits come back very quickly. Since that experiment I went nuts on 50mm primes. I now have FA50 F1.4, FA50 F2.8 macro, FA50 F1.7, F50 F1.7, DA50 F1.8, M50 F2, Takumar 55 F1.8 and F2. Once I got into shooting with them the quality of the photos I produced went way up. Composition was better, and each of those primes was producing cleaner, sharper, less distorted images than my zooms. I also realized that what I was missing on APSC was 35mm, basically the equivalent of 50mm field of view. So I added the DA35 F2.4, Samyang 35 F1.4, and HDFA 35 F2. I love to shoot 35mm on APSC just as much as 50mm on FF. This year I finally went for the best I can possibly get and added the DFA*50. It is heavy and sucks to carry, but I am so blown away by what I can do with it that I lug it around on hikes in the mountains anyway. So now I shoot mainly primes and if I could have just one lens 50mm would be it, followed by 35mm. I have little interest in zooms now. I have the DFA28-105mm that everyone raves about. I got it for convenience to carry around, but compared to the DFA*50 it's pretty meh and not even close for overall image quality. To be fair, viewed at web sizes, especially on phones, no one else can really tell. But I don't do this for anyone else, I do it for me. I love to see my images in Lightroom with all the detail and richness and then print them and hang them on the walls of my office.