5 ms·

If you have an SLR or mirrorless camera, don't yet own any prime lenses (a lens that doesn't zoom), and you want your photographs to get a lot better very quick

If you have an SLR or mirrorless camera, don't yet own any prime lenses (a lens that doesn't zoom), and you want your photographs to get a lot better very quickly, go buy the 50mm f/1.8 lens your camera manufacturer makes and only use that for a couple months.

astrange 4y ago
Mirrorless cameras don’t care what brand their lenses are and 50mm is easy to manual focus. You can get an old Canon FD lens anywhere.
- The_Colonel 4y ago
  > 50mm is easy to manual focus It's not. Especially at f/1.4.
  - jetrink 4y ago
    Have you ever used a manual focus lens on a mirrorless camera with focus-peaking[1] on? It's so easy to focus, it feels like cheating. It makes a 50mm usable wide open. (This is assuming your subject is relatively static or at least cooperative. Small children and animals really benefit from autofocus or a smaller aperture.) 1. For those unfamiliar with the term, focus peaking is a feature of most mirrorless cameras that highlights areas of the image that are in focus, usually in bright red. It makes it very intuitive to adjust the focus precisely, so much so that you soon find yourself subconsciously making fine adjustments by leaning slightly forward or back, rather than manipulating the lens.
    - The_Colonel 4y ago
      Yes, I used many manual lenses on my Fuji XT-10 and XT-2 - 12mm f/2, 35mm f/1.2, 56mm f/1.4 (all crop of course) among others. The only one I would say was easy was the 12mm (for obvious reasons). > This is assuming your subject is relatively static or at least cooperative. Well, there you go, that's a pretty important caveat. It makes e.g. candid photography pretty challenging.
      - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
        Agreed. From my perspective, someone who would benefit from my advice doesn't need the added challenge of dealing with manual focusing in addition to properly composing their frame. I see it as being similar to an innovation token in software development. Choose to learn one new thing at a time, not two or three. https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology Once you're comfortable with a 50mm with autofocus, go nuts! Turn off AF on your lens or body. Practice with manual focusing. Buy an old Canon FD lens and see how delightful these vintages lenses are on a modern body! Then, attach it to a Canon AE-1 and learn how to shoot black and white film! Lots to learn; just don't bite off too much at one time.
    - trap_goes_hot 4y ago
      Sure, but using auto-focus is even easier. I can achieve focus in under a second. And with subject detection + eye-AF, there really is no comparison. In my opinion, focus peaking is somewhat useful for video, macro and astro. I say somewhat because it depends on the implementation. Some implementations (e.g. Sony) also apply in-camera picture settings (which adds sharpening to the output of the JPEG engine - which feeds the EVF), which can give you a false sense of sharp-focus. You'll see a ton of red, when actually the red is coming from the JPEG sharpening, not the change in focus.
      - cat_plus_plus 4y ago
        Auto focus on something can be easier, however at this point you may not have enough focus points to hit the right thing, or the best shot can be a compromise focus between several things which is easier to achieve through analog interface.
        trap_goes_hot 4y ago
        Its not an analog interface. On the lens hardware side most lenses today focus by wire, and the EVF is digital, the focus peaking overlay is an edge + contrast-detection filter (which is imperfect due to JPEG sharpness misleading the engine to show an area as high focus when it isn't). Also the in the hardware/optical realm, the plane of focus is never flat in three dimensions, there is always a curvature to it (and this curvature changes based on the focusing distance). Can you put forth an example of a real world situation that we can discuss?
        cat_plus_plus 4y ago
        I like optical viewfinders and say face closeup at an angle in low light can benefit from my discretion on what the best overall focus is rather than one sharp and one blurry eye. I know all of the other ideas like moving further away, or higher f stop and more lights. All I am saying is that once I am already looking at a shallow focus scene it's easier to rotate a ring till it looks good enough to me than hunt for best autofocus points with a joystick. Hopefully EVF distortions can be turned off on good cameras?
    - BeetleB 4y ago
      Be careful with focus peaking. On many cameras, when using focus peaking in live view, the lens is set to a different aperture during the display (e.g. in very bright light it will stop down) and only when you take the shot does it go to your desired aperture. When you stop down, more of the frame is in focus - and focus peaking will tell you something is in focus, when it will not be in focus at your desired aperture. One way to check if your camera behaves this way is to make the aperture smaller and smaller - does the live display darken significantly? If not, then your camera is not adjusting the aperture until you take the shot. Of course, if using a fully manual lens, this is not an issue.
  - astrange 4y ago
    If your camera has focus peaking and zoom in mode it is. If you don't know how shallow the DoF is and get things out of focus elsewhere in the picture, that's your problem. Don't shoot at f/1.4 then.
dieortin 4y ago
I’m curious, why is this?
- _qua 4y ago
  In my limited photography experience, a prime lens forces you to move and work more to get a pleasing composition which teaches your eye better than twisting a zoom lens.
  - sanitycheck 4y ago
    I think so too. You have to think more to get good shots, and although you lose zoom you get to use DoF as a creative dimension.
- ISL 4y ago
  Aside from the clarity that a prime brings to your composition, the optics in a 50mm f/1.8 are frequently much better than what you'll find from a kit-lens zoom. A Canon 50mm f/1.8 at f/8 as as sharp as anything you'll ever use -- outperforming many professional lenses. In the long run, though, a prime helps you to understand what goes into composing a great image. It takes time to learn a focal length and learn which focal lengths resonate with you. I have recently dabbled with a standard zoom for the first time in ages -- to me, it is now a collection of f/4 prime lenses that are accessible with the turn of a dial, each of whom have their own perspective, character, habits, and temperament. As I work to compose an image with it, I now decide, before I bring the camera to my eye, which focal length I want and select it. If the composition is off, then I move to bring the image together. Without extensive experience with primes, I'd never have understood the power of the changes in perspective that even small changes in focal-length can bring. (See a sibling comment of mine on this post waxing poetic about the differences between 50mm, 40mm, and 35mm.) (you can, of course, get the same experience at lower cost with discipline and duct-tape holding a zoom at fixed focal lengths for days at a time, but most people don't succeed with that approach)

astrange 4y ago

Mirrorless cameras don’t care what brand their lenses are and 50mm is easy to manual focus. You can get an old Canon FD lens anywhere.

The_Colonel 4y ago
> 50mm is easy to manual focus It's not. Especially at f/1.4.
- jetrink 4y ago
  Have you ever used a manual focus lens on a mirrorless camera with focus-peaking[1] on? It's so easy to focus, it feels like cheating. It makes a 50mm usable wide open. (This is assuming your subject is relatively static or at least cooperative. Small children and animals really benefit from autofocus or a smaller aperture.) 1. For those unfamiliar with the term, focus peaking is a feature of most mirrorless cameras that highlights areas of the image that are in focus, usually in bright red. It makes it very intuitive to adjust the focus precisely, so much so that you soon find yourself subconsciously making fine adjustments by leaning slightly forward or back, rather than manipulating the lens.
  - The_Colonel 4y ago
    Yes, I used many manual lenses on my Fuji XT-10 and XT-2 - 12mm f/2, 35mm f/1.2, 56mm f/1.4 (all crop of course) among others. The only one I would say was easy was the 12mm (for obvious reasons). > This is assuming your subject is relatively static or at least cooperative. Well, there you go, that's a pretty important caveat. It makes e.g. candid photography pretty challenging.
    - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
      Agreed. From my perspective, someone who would benefit from my advice doesn't need the added challenge of dealing with manual focusing in addition to properly composing their frame. I see it as being similar to an innovation token in software development. Choose to learn one new thing at a time, not two or three. https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology Once you're comfortable with a 50mm with autofocus, go nuts! Turn off AF on your lens or body. Practice with manual focusing. Buy an old Canon FD lens and see how delightful these vintages lenses are on a modern body! Then, attach it to a Canon AE-1 and learn how to shoot black and white film! Lots to learn; just don't bite off too much at one time.
  - trap_goes_hot 4y ago
    Sure, but using auto-focus is even easier. I can achieve focus in under a second. And with subject detection + eye-AF, there really is no comparison. In my opinion, focus peaking is somewhat useful for video, macro and astro. I say somewhat because it depends on the implementation. Some implementations (e.g. Sony) also apply in-camera picture settings (which adds sharpening to the output of the JPEG engine - which feeds the EVF), which can give you a false sense of sharp-focus. You'll see a ton of red, when actually the red is coming from the JPEG sharpening, not the change in focus.
    - cat_plus_plus 4y ago
      Auto focus on something can be easier, however at this point you may not have enough focus points to hit the right thing, or the best shot can be a compromise focus between several things which is easier to achieve through analog interface.
      - trap_goes_hot 4y ago
        Its not an analog interface. On the lens hardware side most lenses today focus by wire, and the EVF is digital, the focus peaking overlay is an edge + contrast-detection filter (which is imperfect due to JPEG sharpness misleading the engine to show an area as high focus when it isn't). Also the in the hardware/optical realm, the plane of focus is never flat in three dimensions, there is always a curvature to it (and this curvature changes based on the focusing distance). Can you put forth an example of a real world situation that we can discuss?
        cat_plus_plus 4y ago
        I like optical viewfinders and say face closeup at an angle in low light can benefit from my discretion on what the best overall focus is rather than one sharp and one blurry eye. I know all of the other ideas like moving further away, or higher f stop and more lights. All I am saying is that once I am already looking at a shallow focus scene it's easier to rotate a ring till it looks good enough to me than hunt for best autofocus points with a joystick. Hopefully EVF distortions can be turned off on good cameras?
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    Be careful with focus peaking. On many cameras, when using focus peaking in live view, the lens is set to a different aperture during the display (e.g. in very bright light it will stop down) and only when you take the shot does it go to your desired aperture. When you stop down, more of the frame is in focus - and focus peaking will tell you something is in focus, when it will not be in focus at your desired aperture. One way to check if your camera behaves this way is to make the aperture smaller and smaller - does the live display darken significantly? If not, then your camera is not adjusting the aperture until you take the shot. Of course, if using a fully manual lens, this is not an issue.
- astrange 4y ago
  If your camera has focus peaking and zoom in mode it is. If you don't know how shallow the DoF is and get things out of focus elsewhere in the picture, that's your problem. Don't shoot at f/1.4 then.

dieortin 4y ago

I’m curious, why is this?

_qua 4y ago
In my limited photography experience, a prime lens forces you to move and work more to get a pleasing composition which teaches your eye better than twisting a zoom lens.
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  I think so too. You have to think more to get good shots, and although you lose zoom you get to use DoF as a creative dimension.
ISL 4y ago
Aside from the clarity that a prime brings to your composition, the optics in a 50mm f/1.8 are frequently much better than what you'll find from a kit-lens zoom. A Canon 50mm f/1.8 at f/8 as as sharp as anything you'll ever use -- outperforming many professional lenses. In the long run, though, a prime helps you to understand what goes into composing a great image. It takes time to learn a focal length and learn which focal lengths resonate with you. I have recently dabbled with a standard zoom for the first time in ages -- to me, it is now a collection of f/4 prime lenses that are accessible with the turn of a dial, each of whom have their own perspective, character, habits, and temperament. As I work to compose an image with it, I now decide, before I bring the camera to my eye, which focal length I want and select it. If the composition is off, then I move to bring the image together. Without extensive experience with primes, I'd never have understood the power of the changes in perspective that even small changes in focal-length can bring. (See a sibling comment of mine on this post waxing poetic about the differences between 50mm, 40mm, and 35mm.) (you can, of course, get the same experience at lower cost with discipline and duct-tape holding a zoom at fixed focal lengths for days at a time, but most people don't succeed with that approach)