My name is Timmy Smalls, and I'm a photographer based in Melbourne. I recently traveled to the south island of New Zealand for a week with only a 50mm lens, trying to capture the grand and intimate landscapes.
After many years of experience using different lenses, I now have resorted to only using a single prime lens. I started with a 50mm, then added an 85mm, 35mm, 100mm, and 28mm to my collection, and I’ve played around with zooms. But now I exclusively use a 50mm lens. No more zooms and no more choices. But why would I volunteer to limit myself?
As of early 2017, my only camera is the Ricoh GR II, which has a fixed-focal 28mm lens. I wanted to share my personal experiences shooting with a 28mm lens, after shooting with a 35mm lens for almost 6 years.
Fujifilm today announced its new Fujinon XF 50mm f/2 R WR lens, a durable, weatherproof lens that's designed to be "perfect for any type of travel photography."
The 50mm lens has been the 'standard' for street photographers for ages, but is it the best option available? Maybe not. Kai wanted to find out, so he pit the 50mm against a 35mm and 28mm, and went out shooting to find out which he liked best and why.
If you think a 50mm f/1.2 lens that captures sharp portraits with gorgeous bokeh is hundreds or even thousands of dollars away, think again. If you're willing to get creative, you can have one for just 20 bucks.
Sony today announced its new Sony FE 50mm f/2.8 Macro full frame lens. It's a light and compact prime lens that provides versatility.
Back in June my poor little Nikkor AF 50mm F1.8D (and attached body) took a tumble off our patio table.
We reported back in May 2015 that Yongnuo was developing a Nikon counterpart to its cheap 50mm f/1.8 Canon lens. The lens quietly became available recently over on eBay, and the price tag is $82.
News broke back in February that Russian camera manufacturer Zenit was going to come back and take on Leica in the luxury camera market. But the first Zenit products to see the light of day aren't cameras, it's three very fast KMZ/Zenit lenses: the Zenitar 50mm f/0.95, 50mm f/1.2, and 85mm f/1.2.
When people ask me what lens they should get after buying their first camera, I always tell them to buy a 50mm f/1.8 lens because it's one of the cheapest and one of the coolest lens you could buy. I have an old 50mm which is a little bit dirty and also quite old so I don't use it that often. But recently, my girlfriend bought me a brand new 50mm lens, so I fell in love with using the 50mm again.
This is a very small yet very powerful lens, and many people don't know the tricks that you can do with this lens, so I'll share some of them in this article.
We reported at the end of last year that Yongnuo was planning to expand beyond Canon lens clones and begin offering thrifty lenses for Nikon DSLRs by the end of 2015. It looks like the lenses are just around the corner: Yongnuo is already showing off the new lenses over in China, and here's a first look at them.
Here's a quick look at how I created some homemade "petzval swirl" bokeh that mimics photos taken with the new Petzval 58 Bokeh Control Art lens.
This year, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, also called the "Nifty Fifty" celebrates its 25th birthday. Yes, that's right: this lens was released back in December 1990 and is the second oldest lens that's still in production. Yet it still dominates the list of the most popular Canon lenses, and for good reason: it's cheap, it's fast, it's small and lightweight, and it offers good performance for the price, which makes it the first prime lens for most Canon owners.
But of course, being such an old lens does have its downsides, so Canon has just released the successor to the old Nifty Fifty: the new Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM.
After a leak of the lens last week, Canon today officially announced its new "Nifty Fifty," the 50mm f/1.8 STM, a new affordable prime lens that succeeds the extremely popular Canon 50mm f/1.8 II.
The image above is reportedly the first leaked photo of the upcoming Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM, the replacement for the popular and affordable 50mm f/1.8 II "nifty fifty" lens.
DigitalRev TV, the Top Gear of photography, is the latest to do a hands-on comparison of the classic Canon …
Photographers Tony and Chelsea Northrup shot a hands on test video that pits …
February has brought back the galactic core of the Milky Way into the sky. It is now rising in the east just before sunrise. Each week it will rise a little bit earlier in the night.
I have a trip planned for this spring and have been thinking about some of the shots I want to do. One of them is one where I think a lens longer than the 24mm might be useful to really bring some mountains and the Milky Way together.
I recently did a simple review that compared Yongnuo's new $40 clone of the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II. Today I will dive a little deeper into how the two lenses stack up optically.
There’s only so much that can be tested in home without fancy gear (MTF charts and the like) so I did a few tests that gauge common aesthetic qualities, using techniques that are often recommended for testing at home.
Back in September, we reported that Chinese manufacturer Yongnuo has expanded its cloned gear business to include copycat lenses, starting with the Canon 50mm f/1.4. Now a new clone has emerged: the super popular "thrifty fifty" Canon 50mm f/1.8 II (also known as the "nifty fifty" and "plastic fantastic").
We've shared in the past how a broken lens can be used for "freelensing," or taking tilt-shift-esque photographs.
Photographer and lens hacker Witono Halim did this by buying a broken 50mm f/1.8 online for $25, sawing a piece off, and combining everything into a ugly-yet-functional lens with $2 of duct tape.
Yongnuo is a Chinese company that's known for making cheaper third-party alternatives to pricier camera gear. While they've focused on lighting equipment and various accessories up to this point, the company is now branching into a bigger and better market: lenses.
The first product announced is the Yongnuo 50mm f/1.4 (shown above). If you mistook it for the Canon 50mm f/1.4, you're not alone.
In one of those rare more-informative-than-funny Top Gear DigitalRev episodes, Kai tries to help beginners decide what they should buy for their first prime: a nifty 50mm, or a more versatile 35mm.
In a world where there's an always-on march of forward progress driven by the notion that bigger is better, I find it refreshing to see that at least one company is keeping things simple.
Sigma is rumored to be releasing three new primes in the coming months: a 24mm, 85mm and 135mm. These would add to an already amazing set of standard prime lenses for full frame cameras, the superb 35mm f/1.4 and the 50mm f1.4. And it's that 50mm that I've been positively loving for the past month and is our focus today.
You might think you have a fast lens if it tops f/1.2 or f/1.0, but that's nothing compared to the De Oude Delft 50mm f/0.75. It's one of the fastest lenses in the world, and -- compared to other super speedy lenses -- isn't that expensive.
In addition to actually announcing the much-praised 50mm f/1.4 Art lens last week, Sigma also revealed a useful unknown feature for the new 50, as well as some hardware updates for their entire glass line-up.
Three months after SonyAlphaRumors shared the first image samples taken using a prototype of the Mitakon 50mm f/0.95 Full Frame E-mount lens, one of their "trusted sources" has informed them the lens will be officially released on April 20th.
Just days after publishing their glowing review of the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art series lens that ranked it leaps and bounds ahead of the Canon and Nikon competition, SLRgear finally got their hands on the ZEISS Otus for comparison.
And it seems ZEISS will have to work hard to justify the rumored price difference between those two lenses...
When Sigma announced their 50m f/1.4 DG HSM Art lens, they included some extremely dramatic statements. Not only did they say that they wanted to beat out Canon and Nikon, they intended to blow them out of the water, stating that they were aiming to make the lens as good, if not better, than the $4,000 Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus Distagon T*.
Last month we shared a somewhat shady review of the lens, which came with plenty of skepticism, so today we're sharing with you a review from a much more reputable source, SLR Gear.