The best 50mm lenses are small, fast, lightweight and a necessary addition to any photographer's kit bag. These are the top options for your camera
The best 50mm lenses for your camera depend on what mount your camera uses but also what you plan to shoot. A ‘nifty fifty’, as they’re often called, provides a focal length that mostly equates to what the human eye can see. For this reason, 50mm lenses are typically used as portrait lenses or for street photography.
But a 50mm prime lens also provides different effects depending on your camera’s sensor. If you shoot with a full-frame camera, for instance, your 50mm lens will provide a natural perspective.
Put the same lens on a camera with an APS-C sensor and you’ll have an effective focal length of 75mm (or 80mm on Canon bodies). Micro Four Thirds users will find that a 50mm lens provides the equivalent of a 100mm focal length.
What is a 50mm lens good for?
As we said above, 50mm lenses are much-loved by portrait photographers. Their typical combination of speed and a wide aperture means you can create nice shallow depth of field effects and attractive bokeh.
For this reason, lens makers often have a number of 50mm options within their range. Canon, for instance offers f/1.2 and f/1.8 in its RF range, as does Nikon in its Nikkor Z series.
The best 50mm lenses are also small and light. A 24-70mm zoom lens is another popular optic. It’s hugely versatile, but it’s also typically twice the size of a nifty fifty.
A 50mm is also great because it gets you close enough to your subject but also forces you to move. It’s a great lens to learn photography with. It forces you to get creative with your compositions.
What’s more, the best 50mm lenses are also typically affordable. You can often find a fast 50mm lens in your mount for a relatively modest price tag.
