Nifty Fifties – Why I Love 50mm Prime Lenses

Before zoom lenses became the norm most cameras came with a 50mm lens as standard. Since then, the humble 50mm prime has fallen somewhat out of favour. Which is a shame, because 50mm prime lenses can give you high quality and versatility at a low price point. On an APS-C camera it’s one of my favourite focal lengths. Let’s take a look at why.

50mm prime lens vs. kit lens

If you own a kit lens or zoom that covers the 50mm focal length you may be wondering why you would buy a 50mm prime. After all, you already have that focal length covered. The answer is that 50mm lenses have some advantages that kit lenses don’t:

Better image quality

50mm lenses are simple beasts from a design point of view. Lens designers figured out a long time ago how to make a good quality 50mm lens, and the result is that the optical performance of even the least expensive 50mm prime outshines many zooms.

I used a Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II lens (Canon’s cheapest) on a full-frame camera to take the photo below, my first time using it for photographing architecture, and I was amazed at the detail it captured when I enlarged it to 100%.

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