When are you using your 50mm lens?

I've spoken to many photographers and it seems the 50mm although owned by most is considered a novelty lens (so some call it). I'm interested to know how often are you using your 50mm, what are the reasons you use yours?

Is it because you haven't used it in a while so decide "what the heck, might as well get some use out of it". Or do you have a more technical reason for the need of the 50mm focal length?

I have a partial sensor camera, my 35mm is almost the same focal length as a 50 mm. I use it for shallow DOF shots or family shots.

I wouldn't call it a novelty lens, at least in my experience! I personally love the 50mm lens, I've done most of my work with it. I find that it is a great focal length for the type of photography I do, mostly nature and everyday shots of my family. The wide aperture makes it great for creative shots which is why I tend to like it so much!

If you have it, take it seriously. It's a wonderful lens that's perfect for so many different situations.

I use it for portraits and as a good everyday lens

I use it for portraits in my outdoor studio. It's my best lens to get shallow dof and a great shot...

This focal length creates the most similar effect as your eye does. The pictures taken with a 50mm focal length lens makes an impression as you would "expect" a certain scene to look like. Compare it with the fish-eye-feeling for instance. Additionally the fixed focal lenght lenses provide usually huge apperture openings, making the DOF game possible, as it was mentioned before. (and I personally like the sharpness and absence of the chromatic abberation on my lens)

I look at a scene with my eyeballs. Then I lift the camera with a 50mm lens to my eye and look at the same scene. When I look through a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera it does not look much like what I see with my normal vision. Some aspects are similar. Many are not. The field of view gets even tighter on an APS-C format camera. Try a 50mm on a 4x5 camera; it's bordering on fisheye.

50mm lenses are ubiquitous because it provides a field of view on 35mm format that's between wide and tight, and it's particularly easy and cheap to make high image quality lenses at this focal length. In the past zoom lenses weren't much of an option because of quality and cost. 50mm was a good all around lens choice, and it was fairly inexpensive. So it became the default kit lens before zooms. Every manufacturer has an inexpensive 50mm lens in their lineup.

Now we have quality zooms, and they are cheap to make, so they have become the default. The problem is that fast zooms are still expensive, and even the common 50mm is a stop plus faster than the fanciest zooms. It doesn't take up much room in the bag, it's cheap, so why not?

I use mine when I need more speed than f/2.8 or want to carry a smaller camera. That's fairly often for me, so I get a lot of use out of my 50mm. If I was using APS-C I'd want 28mm or 35mm instead. I prefer the 85mm for portraits on APS-C and 35mm format.

Starting with a longer than normal lens (50mm on APS-C, 85mm on 35mm) might be a pretty good idea for beginners. They are often told to "get closer."

I use mine when I feel what I am shooting requires it. Same as with any other lens I have. Proper tools for the job as always.

Mainly with portraits

It is true, I did not specify the format of the camera. I took it natural, that everyone uses APS-C, so the focal length changes to approx 80mm with a 50mm lens. If I disregard the crop, then I get almost the same magnification. That's what I meant. I don't know the equivalent focal length on a 4x5 camera, but it needs to transform the lens to a wide-angle lens.

gadam777 wrote: It is true, I did not specify the format of the camera. I took it natural, that everyone uses APS-C, so the focal length changes to approx 80mm with a 50mm lens.

So human vision is like an 80mm lens?

A normal lens is one where the focal length approximately equals the distance measured from corner to corner diagonally across the sensor or film or plate. It is often described as one that has a field of view that seems natural to human viewers. A normal lens (50mm on 35, 30mm on APS-C) has a field of view of approximately 40 degrees horizontally. Human vision has a field of view of 120 (conservative estimate) degrees horizontally.

In the past the majority of photographers were shooting with lenses that were normal for the format, and people may have gotten used to thinking that a 40 degree field of view is normal for photographs, but the way human vision works I think human vision is more like a zoom lens. Even though the eye remains the same, our mind can completely ignore what's in the periphery of our vision, and sort of zoom in on the parts that we are concentrating on. 40 degree would be the center 1/3rd of our field of view, and that may well be a decent estimate as to what many of us are commonly concentrating on, but it's obvious that we can go wider and tighter as well. Looking into someone's eyes we zoom in tight (portraits). Surveying a scene we go wider (landscapes, street). In the age of zoom lenses I think we are re-training ourselves as to what we perceive as normal. Once upon a time 28mm on a 35mm camera was considered extremely wide. These days it's just wide. I think today most folks would perceive photos taken with 35mm (maybe even wider) to 70mm (on 35mm format) quite normal looking. It just depends on the subject, and how we are used to viewing those subjects with our vision.

Henry Peach wrote:

gadam777 wrote: It is true, I did not specify the format of the camera. I took it natural, that everyone uses APS-C, so the focal length changes to approx 80mm with a 50mm lens.

So human vision is like an 80mm lens?

Exactly! The different focal length modifies the perception of the distant objects. And of course the field of view changes, but the magnification of the objects feels more natural with 80mm (on 35mm format). Take a look on my demo picture, where I used different focal length lenses. Watch the ratio change of my nose and ears. All pictures are taken with APS-C, so to compare the results with 35mm, you need to apply the correction factor.