The 50mm
A lot of people who shoot crop DSLR's (i.e. most average people) always hear this notion of a "nifty fifty" or the necessity to get a standard 50mm prime lens. But what I realized is that everyone who is getting a 50mm prime to use on a crop DSLR is not actually getting a 50mm prime in the traditional sense of what the significance of a 50mm prime means (that is, in 35mm film camera terms). Instead, they're getting something more like a 75mm, 80mm or 100mm prime depending on the crop factor of your DSLR (1.5x, 1.6x or 2.0x).
So recently when Clarissa surprised me with a 25mm prime for my 2.0x crop camera, I am now truly able to experience a "nifty fifty." (1.5x or 1.6x users would need something like a 30mm or 35mm prime to more closely match the "fifty" field of view).
And my initial reaction to using the standard prime was that it's a lot harder than I originally thought. 50mm is in this range of not very wide and not very telephoto. Initial impressions left me thinking that it was kind of in a no-man's land. And this is a sentiment that I never really heard from anyone before because everyone using 50mm lenses on their crop Canon and Nikon DSLR's aren't actually having the true 50mm experience.
But I came across an article about the so called "Faithful Fifty" here that gave me some insight about how to start using this lens: The Faithful Fifty
The key note in this article to me is where it says:
Learn to see. Wide-angles embrace complete scenes, telephotos pick out detail. The normal just... sees. The Fifty is the human-scale lens, so look for things on the human scale. If you can see something easily, chances are that so can the Fifty.
Indeed after playing around with the lens a bit more myself, I began to realize this. Looking at a scene, what you can see with your plain old eyes without shifting your eyes to scan around is what you can easily capture with the field of view that the 50mm prime offers (again in 35mm terms).
The 50mm prime forces me to either get closer to the scene, or take a step back. It forces me to make that choice, whereas a wider angle lens pushes me to always take wide shots and a short telephoto pushes me to always take telephoto-ish shots. It seems to me that the standard 50mm allows you to instead push it into either being a "wider" shot or a "short tele" shot. And that requires more decisiveness, rather than letting the lens dictate the composition.
It's interesting and I'm looking forward to trying out this lens more.
4 comments
I started off with 50mm on a 35mm film camera and def would say crop factor on dslr's made a big diff when I shifted to dslr but still on a 50mm lens. Been recently shooting again in film and really enjoy it.B/c I first started with 50mm (whether film or digital), I def feel like it has taught me to look closer and do the step forward or back cause the lens forces me to, compared to wide or telephoto ones. At times using a 50mm is not all that great for wider shots/event based stuff where there are crowds of ppl, but I really enjoy looking closer. I think it's cause of using the 50mm that I draw to talking photos that are close, looking at details.
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