31–40 of 167 posts
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.
It's not the only take on the subject, and I actually think it's quite mistaken. 50mm is great for street portraits or fashion shots. This is where you 1) can't come too close to not spook the subject, 2) want tighter framing, 3) want to put your subject on a little bit of a pedestal so to speak, or 4) want to make a huge print out of your shot. However, for candid "photos of your own loved ones" as in the article, I…
I cannot recommend a 35mm for close-up pictures of people. The perspective is too weird. I have a 35mm lens, I used it a lot, and it has its uses--and the main way I use it is to capture more of the room or more people when I'm taking pictures indoors. Going too close with it results in distorted pictures which is fine as an artistic choice but it's not the choice most people want to make. The Ricoh GR III has a 28mm…
> I cannot recommend a 35mm for close-up pictures of people.
Also a little too long. Emotional distance, framing difficulty, yada yada. 28mm is probably the best bet for casual candids with relatives for the reasons I listed.
> The perspective is too weird.
Who cares. If you fail to capture a memorable moment because you were busy looking into the viewfinder focusing and framing, you fail, period. Very hard to do with a wide lens.
Distortion is just not a problem for casual shots of loved ones. It's not fashion or advertisement-- for the purposes of capturing memory & feeling you may want to emphasise intimacy and presence rather than perfection of proportions.
> It's really not. I would start at like 90mm equivalent for fashion or general portraiture (i.e. not candids).
Hard disagree. Wow. A prime of 90mm poses way too many constraints to work with. Unless we're talking professional photography, at which point you might be OK investing loads in a high-quality zoom/a spacious studio/lights/etc., there's really no point in shelling out for a lens that long that would be useless in most scenarios.
What's limiting new digital cameras from becoming faster? A decade ago a friend showed me his digital camera with an ISO setting in the thousands and I was amazed at how little noise there was. I've since been a little disappointed that I'm still balancing noise and aperture shooting indoors. Phones take on the problem with heavy image processing, but I'm interested in hardware solutions.
Shooting indoors is unfixable because there isn’t full spectrum light; you’ll have to make up some of the missing colors eventually.
What's limiting new digital cameras from becoming faster? A decade ago a friend showed me his digital camera with an ISO setting in the thousands and I was amazed at how little noise there was. I've since been a little disappointed that I'm still balancing noise and aperture shooting indoors. Phones take on the problem with heavy image processing, but I'm interested in hardware solutions.
These aren't dead! You can still find a variety of fast 50mm lenses, from a cheap f/1.8 for like $150 (which is still way better than most kit lenses) to a very nice f/1.4 upgrade at like $400 all the way to absurdly expensive ones. https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/comparisons/premium-50mm-le... Their primary advantages: * Amazing "bokeh" -- the quality and look of the background blur that modern phones mostly try to…
Absolutely agree, but have to add a small nitpick: 50mm primes used to be lightweight. The trend is towards Sigma Art / Zeiss Milvus/Otus dimensions, and that means much better edge sharpness but ~1kg in weight.
Besides perhaps the Canon 50mm f/1.8, 50mm lens are big now. Like a grapefruit on the front of your camera, to the extent it kinda obviates the size reduction in mirrorless bodies—slimmer body, and a giant lens.
There are reasons for that. If you’re buying an interchangeable lens camera, you are probably after image quality, and the new generation of lenses are phenomenal. I am not sure if you’d call this Nikon cheap, but it blows away all their previous offerings. (https://www.zsystemuser.com/z-mount-lenses/nikkor-lenses/nik...)
These aren't dead! You can still find a variety of fast 50mm lenses, from a cheap f/1.8 for like $150 (which is still way better than most kit lenses) to a very nice f/1.4 upgrade at like $400 all the way to absurdly expensive ones. https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/comparisons/premium-50mm-le... Their primary advantages: * Amazing "bokeh" -- the quality and look of the background blur that modern phones mostly try to…
The downside around the "perfect framing" is that focal length will change perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photog... (take a head a shoulders portrait of yourself with a 20mm and then 85mm lens to see). Almost all professional photographers who need to get the shot have moved to zooms for good reason.
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.
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.
I’m curious, why is this?
From a tech point of view, 50mm is the easiest lens to build. That's why they used to be on everything. Not because they're useful. A symmetric double gauss setup with six lenses is kinda straightforward and it works okay, it even becomes excellent once stopped down. Sharp 35mm lenses that are also fast can only be built with aspherical lenses, so traditionally it wasn't really possible to build fast ones that are also good. Recent ones are excellent, but as always, many photographers refuse to go with the times, and they'll repeat decade old advice.
(TL;DR: Smartphones do a lot of things right, and their evolution was backed by data. They first went from 28mm to 24mm, added 16mm second, then added 75mm third, and only then did they add 48mm as a 2x zoom into the 24mm camera. It's neat, but not essential.)