Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptnAwesomee
I've been getting multiple people recommend me 50mm 1.8 fixed lenses, saying it will help me get better, because it will help me think of how I take a picture instead of relying on zoom lenses? Is this true? and should I get one?
|
50mm primes are a bit of a throw back from the film age. 50mm focal length on a 35mm film camera or a full frame DSLR is equivalent of human eyes field of attention, about 45°. This is in fact often rather mistakenly referred as field of vision which is not strictly speaking true at all. Human eyes field of vision or field of view is in fact something more like 90-110° however the about 45° portion of it which is overlapping for both eyes and produces stereoscopic vision and as a result our brains pretty much focus on that and leave the rest for the subconsciousness to deal with (peripheral vision).
On a typical consumer DSLR this doesn't actually work quite like that however because of the crop factor. 50mm no longer produces the field of attention equivalent field of view but narrower. With typical DSLR crop factors something like 30-35mm would be more like it.
That being said there's one big advantage to f/1.8 50mm primes. In terms of image quality and low light performance there's absolutely nothing on the market that can even come close to beating them in terms of bang for the buck. You should be able to get a brand new Canon 50mm F/1.8 II for about $100 and for that money it's a deal pretty much impossible to pass. Out of 50mm lenses available for Canon that would be my recommendation.
As for it helping you get better at photography I'd have to agree with Ledgem. It's a tool just as anything else it's restrictions will force you to to think more of what you're doing if you want to end up with a good result and thus it will probably help a bit with becoming more comfortable with planning your compositions ahead. It will also allow far more control of depth of field than your kit lens. At 50mm 18-55mm Canon if I remember correctly has a maximum aperture of F/5 which doesn't really allow to do that apart from very very close focusing distances. So it will open the world of bokeh balls for you. Just don't get lost in there.
But there are really no tricks to improve yourself as a photographer. It's all in the effort you put into it. To actually get better you need just need to go out there looking for something to shoot come hell or high water. There's no substitute to experience and there's only one way to get it. Your equipment what ever it is, is just tools.
Some tools are better than others, some are not necessarily better in absolute terms but better suited for the job and so on. Having to adapt to the tools available is a useful learning experience. Because no matter what kind of gear you have you'll have there's always some of it to do. I've never found myself in a position where I would have had the perfect lens and a camera with me there's always something you'll need to work around of to get the shot you want.
What ever gear you get should be suited for the kind of photography you want to do. While a 35mm or a 50mm are good for general photography, street photography, portraits and so on they're pretty much useless for sports or nature photography. And then again something like 300mm f/4 which is great for nature and sports photography is completely useless for street photography.
So I would recommend getting a 50mm or 35mm it's with a reservation. They're great as long as you know what they're suitable for. If you want to try your hands on nature photography for instance I would recommend not wasting your money on either 35 or 50mm and would recommend going for Canon 55-250mm EF-S instead. It's a rather nice performer for its price. However be warned if you do end up finding that to be a lens that works for what ever photography you do, you'll probably run into it's limitations quite quickly.
I myself shoot almost exclusively on primes. Even though I don't really have large collection of them. I'm a graduate of film age as a photography enthusiast and equipment being a bit too expensive for a budget of a kid of his early teens I had to make do with what I had which was an arcane semi-automatic film camera and a few prime lenses. Seems old habits are hard to kick.
___
Here's one shot from a recent experimental set I shot. Taken with Olympus PEN E-PL1 and Voigtländer 25mm F/0.95 Nokton. Lit with two candles.
