It gives you one angle of view, and that’s it. If you’re looking to get those shots where the background is super blurred out, and your subject is nice and sharp, a prime lens will help you achieve that effect! With a zoom lens, you’ve got a lot more flexibility. A 50mm lens is just a 50mm lens. . By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. They’re the lenses we reach for most often – for all the reasons I’ve listed above! All 50mm lenses will share the same field of view and magnification, but they can have vastly different apertures. Just knowing the focal length of a lens doesn’t tell us a whole lot about how it will perform in the real world. For example, compare the price of a 50mm f/1.8 Canon prime (known as the “nifty fifty”) to that of Canon’s 50mm f/1.2 – the latter is around ten times more expensive! The Canon 50mm f/1.4 costs just $360, is a lot better built than the f/1.8 and performs even better in low light. A 50mm lens is just a 50mm lens. Prime lenses are a great place for any budding photographer to begin experimenting with new lenses because they force you into a new and unfamiliar place. If you want to really dig into primes and zooms, and learn more about the different focal lengths, take a look at our full tutorial, Extremely Essential Camera Skills! All Rights Reserved. The flexibility of a zoom lens is great in certain circumstances but you are paying a huge premium, both in terms of price and performance. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. What about you? We’ve used both primes and zooms in our careers as photographers, and while they both have their place, we have a real fondness for primes. How to Change the Theme and Accent Color of Instagram DMs, How to Record Shows and Movies on YouTube TV, How to Get Cycling Navigation Directions in Apple Maps. But I’ve found this to be a really helpful way to understand a focal length. You’ll know just how things will look when you shoot with that 50mm – what will be in the shot, what won’t be, how it will render the lines. Subscribe to our newsletter and learn how to take awesome photos, and get tons of free stuff to make it faster, and easier! Generally speaking, prime lenses are sharper than zoom lenses. When choosing a lens for your camera, you have two general options: primes or zooms. Register To This Secret Photography Training (. If you stand in the wrong spot, you’re going to need to move or, possibly, miss your shot. A prime lens might require more thought to use, but you get a lot more lens for your buck. Do you like shooting with primes? What Does “ITT” Mean, and How Do You Use It? So if you use a 50mm prime a lot, you’ll start to see the world in 50mm. A big benefit to using prime lenses is that they give you the option of letting more light into your camera because they have wider maximum apertures. Many prime lenses have enormous apertures, giving you greater control over depth of field (as seen above) and allowing you to shoot in low-light situations with greater ease. The monkey is impressed with the quality. Invest in a neutral density filter if you want to shoot with large apertures in sunny … So there’s an enormous jump up in price when you really get into the high quality lenses. Subscribe to our newsletter and learn how to take awesome photos, and get tons of free stuff to make it faster, and easier! If you want to get closer, you have to move closer. We're The Photography Concentrate Team: Daniel, Jill, Kaitlyn and Kristal. Focal length determines the field of view and apparent magnification of the lens, while aperture determines the depth of field and low light performance. there are actually a bunch of reasons to choose a prime! I’m a photography ninja here at Photography Concentrate. Good zoom lenses, however, cost a lot more. You can see the scene faster, you can shoot in darker situations, get faster shutter speeds, and get beautiful, soft out-of-focus backgrounds. And while that might seem to make a zoom sound like a better choice (more focal lengths for the money = better value??) That’s a serious amount more low light performance, and a much shallower depth of field. There’s generally less distortion and less chromatic aberration because, again, lens manufacturers only need to control for the one focal length. While being able to get great lenses at affordable prices is reason enough to consider adding primes to your kit, there’s another reason you should think about it: limits help you be creative. If, however, the 18-55mm lens that comes with your camera can be used as a 50mm lens, why on earth would you get a dedicated 50mm prime lens? RELATED: What Is a "Stop" in Photography? You can get plenty of incredible prime lenses with wide apertures for under $1000. Prime lenses, in general, have wider maximum apertures than zooms. TIP: You’ll generally want to stop down the lens a bit (i.e. So we just talked about how prime lenses have wider maximum apertures than zoom lenses. Further to that last point, you’ll also find other image quality benefits with prime lenses. But with a prime lens, even stopping down a bit is going to still be a wide aperture, letting in lots of light, achieving a shallow depth of field, and giving you nice sharp results. Let me know in the comments below! When I’m not shooting, or writing, you can find me cooking (and eating! A prime lens has only one focal length. Basically a prime lens helps you develop a muscle memory for a focal length, which means less fiddling, less thinking, and more “feeling” the shot. Prime lenses in general are smaller and lighter than zooms. This isn’t especially wide, and won’t make pleasing portraits or perform great in low light. The other benefit of the wider aperture is that it allows you to get shallower depth of field in your images (narrower range of the image in focus). A big benefit to using prime lenses is that they give you the option of letting more light into your camera because they have wider maximum apertures. I’m downright obsessed with photography, and love sharing it with super cool folks like yourself. But moving your feet is one of the best ways to get really interesting compositions. What Are Prime Camera Lenses, and Why Would You Use Them? Join today and get instant access! Harry Guinness is a photography expert and writer with nearly a decade of experience. Focal length is just one of the characteristic of a lens; the other important one is aperture. His work has been published in newspapers like The New York Times and on a variety of other websites, from Lifehacker to Popular Science and Medium's OneZero. From a lens design perspective, when there are fewer focal lengths to have to accommodate for, it’s easier to create a lens that produces sharp images. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, and more. Looking back at our 18-55mm kit lens, at 50mm it probably has a maximum aperture of f/5.6. A prime lens is going to prevent you from getting stuck in the bad habit of standing still, and for this reason alone they’re well worth using! The 50mm prime lens, however, will have an aperture of f/1.8 or even wider. Play with light. It expands on these concepts, teaches you what all those funky numbers mean, and helps you start taking better photos in only a few hours! As you can see, with prime lenses there are very affordable, very good options. You will be too! ), traveling, and hanging out with wonderful people. When you can only use a single focal length, you have to think about everything you do. You cannot get closer to your subject by zooming. And when I say “little”, I really mean it! Join our +48,000 photographer pals, and get our very best content and freebies delivered straight to your inbox! How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. M a photography expert and writer with nearly a decade of experience LifeSavvy Media lenses: lenses... To Create and Manage To-Dos in WhatsApp Using Any.Do, © 2020 LifeSavvy Media way to understand a focal.... Suddenly, instead of simply zooming, you ’ ll start to see the world in 50mm – for the... 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