Bultaco Loc: Aiken, SC

Anywhere you want?

wteffey Loc: Ocala, FL USA

In "normal" light I have found a 50mm too short for portraits, unless you like your wife to have a big nose. You also have to get right on top of pets, insects or children to fill the screen, then they get distracted by the camera and stop whatever it was they were doing. While too short for these uses, it is too long for many landscapes. After spending a good piece of my budget on a 50mm prime, I use it only for indoor photography when a flash is forbidden, like an art gallery, for example. Other people will have different opinions (urban dwellers, for example, might get more use), but I have found it rarely leaves the bag.

ballsafire Loc: Lafayette, Louisiana

It is not WHERE you can expect to use the 50mm lens -- use it indoors because it is good in LOW light (50mm 1.8) and it is fine outdoors too!! I am surprised how people responded on this link except those who knew the virtue of the "nifty-fifty". It is an economical lens as well.

pendennis

Although the Nikkor 50mm seldom gets much use anymore, it was invaluable when I took photography classes in the '70's. My instructor would insist on us using the 50 for learning how to frame, working out distances, angles, etc. We would get assignments in which we could use only one lens, usually the 50.

It's not a do-all, see-all lens. It is a quite useful tool in learning the basics. Before 35mm became so popular, and fixed lens cameras were the majority of what was sold, people did learn how to use them effectively. That stated, there are an awful lot of bad photos out there taken with a 50, when another focal length would be far better to use.

PhotosBySteve

On your crop frame sensor, it will provide you with great portrait opportunities. However, if you are seeking a normal perspective, I would suggest a 35mm lens for your camera.

jcboy3

50 50 50...the myth of the 50 just keeps coming. Yes, the earliest rangefinders had ~50mm lenses (51.6, 52.3 and the whole Nikon fiasco). Mostly due to the ease of developing such lenses. But "normal" is usually defined as the diagonal of the film, and thats about 43mm. And Rangefinders had lenses that ran from 50 down to 35. In fact, there were a whole bunch of "fast 35", i.e. f/1.8 or f/2, rangefinders. My Yashica from the early 70's had a 40mm lens.

Which is the reason I never particulary cared for the 50mm lens when I moved to SLR; I always preferred the 35. Better for landscape; more interesting for other stuff because you had to get closer.

And now, we have a whole bunch of folks confusing the 50mm with a "normal" lens on a crop sensor. Perhaps because crop sensors tend to be second thoughts for camera makers; they were used to making lenses for 35mm film, and they wanted to keep making those lenses for digital. Crop sensor was just a stop-gap until they could get 36mm sensors.

Really, a 28mm lens on a crop sensor is equivalent to a 42mm lens...and that is a true "normal". So, where are all the cheap "nifty-normal" 28mm lenses for crop sensor cameras? Oh, there aren't any.

Edia Loc: Central New Jersey

A 50mm f1.8 lens on a 80D gives you the equivalent of 80mm on a full frame camera. This lens is great for portraits and will give you the bokeh that your zoom lens lacks. It is sharper than the zoom lens so you need to use your feet to zoom with the fixed focal length lens. A 35mm lens on your 80D is more like the nifty fifty on a FF camera.

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

I use it for portraits and snaps under in home window light - it's tack sharp and excellent.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Most people would have a planned use or reason for making an additional lens purchase, so I guess that's what you mean by "putting the cart before the horse", huh?

On an 80D with its APS-C size sensor, a 50mm will behave as a nice, short telephoto... great for portraiture, among other things where that type lens is useful. On APS-C cameras an 85mm lens is a good complement for a 50mm... covering the "ideal" portrait range. Besides their focal length, angle of view and the way these lenses render a natural looking perspective another factor is that they are available with fairly large apertures: f/2.0, f/1.8 and f/1.4 versions are available for reasonable prices. In the Canon line-up, more premium priced f/1.2 are also available. These large apertures can be used to fairly strongly blur down backgrounds, which also can be desirable for portraiture, among other things.

On APS-C cameras... 50mm is sort of an "indoor portrait" and 85mm sort of an "outdoor portrait" focal length. Of course their uses in either situation depends upon what working distance you have and how tightly you're trying to frame your subject. 50mm can be nice for portraits of couples and small groups. And 85mm might be a good "head and shoulders" lens.

Macro lenses also tend to be short telephotos, though most 50mm and 85mm are not particularly close focusing to offer high magnification on their own. However, they can be used with macro extension tubes relatively easily. The longer the focal length, the more extension that's needed to make significant changes in a lens' close focusing ability. Therefore, a short teles such as these might also be pretty easily used in combination with macro extension tubes.

There are some 50mm, 70mm and 90mm macro lenses. But most macro lenses offer no larger than f/2.8 aperture... That's not bad but one to two stops less ability to blur down backgrounds, and really do no better than match some premium zooms with f/2.8. I've been using one lens that's a bit of an exception... Tamron SP 60mm f2.0 DiII (crop only). In a sense this replaces replaces 50mm, 85mm and a macro lens in my camera bag when I want to travel light. One lens instead of three is great, although my 50/1.4 is still a stop faster. The Tammy 60mm is also rather slow focusing (like most macro lenses) so certainly isn't a "sports" lens. But it tucks nicely into one corner of my camera bag.

Of course, low light shooting is another possibility with these "fast" lenses. Also, primes such as these are much more compact than many zooms, especially when compared to fast premium f/2.8 zooms. These primes may be less intrusive and intimidating to subjects... maybe less likely to get the attention of a mugger, too.

In the Canon lens line-up the "portrait pair" (50mm and 85mm) can be complemented with 35mm f/2.0 "standard" lens and 28mm f/1.8 "slightly wide standard" (on APS-C). There are also premium 35mm f/1.4 and 24mm f/1.4, if you're okay with their price, size and weight. Or, if you want stronger telephotos there are the 135mm f/2.0 and 200mm f/2.0... though these certainly bigger and heavier too. Wider and longer focal lengths both render perspective less naturally than the short telephotos. You particularly have to be careful of wider lenses used to close or with subjects positioned near the edge of the image area, as these lenses will tend to exaggerate perspective quite a bit. Longer focal length effects on perspective are more subtle and can even be desirable for things like fashion photography. OTOH, a 28mm or 24mm can make for a good "environmental portrait" lens... capturing a person within their workspace or home in a more photojournalistic way, showing some of their surroundings to "tell" more about them. Conversely, an 85mm or 135mm on APS-C can be a "candid portrait" lens, allowing you to shoot from a greater distance to be less intrusive with the subjects.

Most of these lenses have very fast USM focus drive, too. That's great for sports, if you can work close enough. It's generally not great for video though (switch to manual focus instead... or use an STM lens).

A couple of these lenses also have image stabilization (35/2.0 and 200/2.0). I suspect we'll see this feature added to more of these primes in the future, though it does appear to increase the cost of a lens $100 to $200.

There are few "negative" aspects of using these lenses... Working with primes usually means carrying more lenses and they're less convenient than zooms. You'll need to learn to "zoom with your feet". Also, the large apertures they offer tend to be more demanding of accurate focus. Shallow depth of field is less forgiving of any focus error. Some people just can't give up their zooms... and there can be times even for portraiture when a zoom is desirable (kids and pets, for example).

It's good to experiment with primes and see how they work for you. I think primes promote good habits of walking around your subjects and looking at them from different distances and angles.... While zooms do the opposite by encouraging you to stand in one place and rely upon the lens "do the work".

cthahn

This the lens you should have started with instead of the zoom lens. Learn with a prime lens before playing zoom.

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

Jerry is right again. Most folks had one lens at the start a 50mm. It is reputed to be as close to the human eye. And yes your legs are the zoom.
And I dont think the first zooms were as good as the zooms today. The use legs for framing really does not work that well. But it was good enough for some very famous photographers.
And I will add another discovery with my new gamble the Sony R10 III. I love the reach of 24mm to 600mm and with clear zoom you can go further. Can shoot
while being out of the way. My granddaughter was in her first big time soccer game. And I was able to shoot her in the huddle with in intense look.
I was at a NASCAR race for the first time and short a skydiver with a giant US flag. The fact that the lens is Zeiss and can be shot at 2.4 F4 for quite a zoom
being a bridge camera with stabilizing makes it fun to use. No great Bokeh.
I wil say that my 55mm 1.8 lens with the Sony a7s is primo. A great creative tool. Candid portraits get raves from my friends and family.
Good luck.

Bill_de Loc: US

As others have mentioned, using the 50 exclusively for a while (much longer than a week) will be a great learning experience. For those distant landscapes, use your feet/car/reindeer powered sled to get closer. For subjects that are too close, back up. If you can't back up, take a closer look at your subject and find a way to shoot off to the side, higher or lower. You may also be able to isolate the most interesting elements of the subject and photograph them individually. Shoot anything and everything.

You will open your eyes to new subjects and see old ones in a different way. You will learn how to make the most out of the lens and also find its weaknesses.

When you mount your other lenses you will find yourself thinking about how to use them to their best advantage ... and how much heavier they are.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Yes, 35mm film cameras used to come fitted with 50mm or there-about lenses. There was actually a range from around 40mm to 60mm that were considered "standard" lenses.... some say to approximate the primary vision of the human eye... and some point to the diagonal dimension of the 2:3 aspect ratio 35mm film image area - 43mm - as the "ideal".

All manufacturers made lenses close to 50mm... reasonably fast (large aperture) lenses. The optical formula were pretty simple and well-established, giving high image quality. Some, including Canon, called certain of their 50mm lenses their "reference" lens... the one that set the standard by which all other lenses in their system were measured for sharpness, color rendition, contrast and all aspects of image quality. In Canon's case, their reference lens was the FDn 50mm f/1.4 in the latter days of the old mount and the EF 50/1.4 USM in the modern EOS mount system (and still in production, although probably long overdue for an update).

Personally I always found "standard" lenses rather boring. Back in the 1970s through 90s I carried a bunch of primes (most zooms really sucked): 21mm, 24mm, 35/2, 85/1.8, 135/2.8, 200/3.5 and 300/4.5. No "standard" lens... my 35/2 served as a "slightly wide standard" lens. The 50mm (or 40mm, 52mm, 57mm in some cases) that came with the camera mostly just gathered dust on a shelf at home.

Of course, those were all on "full frame" film cameras. Once I switch to digital APS-C cameras I started using 50mm a lot!

Jim Bob

Geesus. What a dumb question. Guess you didn't think about that prior to purchase. Well, you certainly came to the right place. This site is replete with dumb questions.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Set your 18-135 lens to 50mm. Leave it there and save money. Same perspective as 50mm is 50mm on the same camera. The difference will be light gathering is greater than your zoom and you can obtain a shallower DOF. If those are critical to you and you want those specific capabilities then get the 50mm and use it for those purposes. If it is just to have 50mm then you already own that focal length and if it does not work for you then go to 49mm or 51mm.
If wanting to spend money you do not have a ultra wide like the 10-18mm which is an incredible lens and is very affordable.
I would get that next instead of a 50 unless you have a set and distinctive reason for obtaining it.