Prime candidate

…or why you need a 50mm prime lens in your life!

About 6 months or so ago, I was thinking about getting a lens upgrade and started reading reviews and articles to see what was available and applicable to my needs. There's a bewildering array of glass out there and for a beginner, it all pretty much looks the same - just more or less expensive!

I'd already researched a wide angle lens that would suit my needs, so I started looking at other focal lengths and time after time I read in articles that a good fast 50mm prime is the must have lens. As this would pretty much replace the longer focal length of my kit zoom and I was planning to get into food photography, this seemed ideal! I had some Amazon vouchers burning a hole - and smacked down an order for a mid range Nikkor f1.8 prime.

The f number is important when it comes to prime lenses as this opens the door to all sorts of creative possibilities with depth of field blur when you use them wide open at their largest aperture. The smaller the f number - the bigger the aperture and so consequently - the bigger the price! At around £150 - the f 1.8G seemed like a good mid range purchase and as the f1.4 was nearly twice the cost - I settled for that.

The benefits to buying a prime lens are many:

• The focal length is fixed, so you don't get any (or not as much) chromatic lens aberration in comparison with a zoom. As they have to cover a range of focal lengths, zooms tend to suffer a drop in quality as a compromise, so colour fringing and distortion are greater. With less moving parts, the image quality of a prime if far better.
• Primes offer a much lower maximum f number that you are able to get from a zoom at a fraction of the cost. The lowest aperture on my kit zoom was 3.5 but this climbs to 5.6 as you zoom out and if you want a really fast zoom you have to pay well over a grand to get anywhere near f2.5. A 50mm prime gives you a great maximum aperture for a 10th of the cost and it's great quality glass.
• As there's no zoom option - you are forced to think about positioning your camera in order to get the composition you want. This sounds like a massive down side but it's actually quite liberating in practice and is a great way to force you to consider what's in the view finder and how you can improve things.

The f1.8G is a really nicely built lens - it feels solid and professional, and comes with a bayonet fit lens hood and soft pouch, which are nice additions. Controls are minimal - there's a chunky focus ring that feels nice in the hand, a rudimentary focus scale and a manual/AF switch. Other than that, you just fit it and move your feet to zoom in and out. it feels nice in the hand and looks "right" on the camera body - don't know why - just does!

I found the lack of any image stabilization odd at first, and spend a fair while shooting with the lens and getting really disappointing results - I had camera shake every time I shot hand held and due to the crop factor of putting a true 50mm lens an an APS-C body - the focal length I was actually getting on the sensor is 75mm, so the lens is too long to use indoors generally. I began to wonder what all the hype was about and set it aside for a while - at least it was cheap!

Recently, I've been getting into food and ingredients photography, as as subject I could shoot for stock libraries - one of the main reasons I bought a camera in the first place was to broaden my stock image portfolio - I'd already been contributing vector illustrations to i-stock and shutterstock for a few years. As I started planning shots and images, the 50mm lens came into it's own - it's the ideal glass for food imagery, due to the great depth of field blur (or Bokeh) if affords, and shooting from a tripod, camera shake isn't an issue. I've also recently bought a great speedlight flash, and this works great with the prime for all hand held shooting.

What I've found, is I've had to learn how to work with the lens to get a good image rather than just relying on the bolt on lens widgets. Images need to be composed well to begin with as there's no option to zoom in apart from moving the camera closer. I had trouble with the auto focus initially and found that manual focus was easier to use. I've now worked out that the AF option works great but doesn't like the camera to be moving.

It's been a learning curve, but in the end I think this lens has forced me to be a better photographer and maybe that's why we all need one! A 50mm lens offers basic photography in it's most accessible form and when you learn how to use it correctly, you'll love the images it makes - you need one in your life - fact!

As usual - if you're enjoying these posts, do let me know with a comment - I'd love to hear from you! Keep shooting!