When it comes to portrait lenses, 85mm tends to be the focal length that gets the majority of the attention from gearheads and is often where manufacturers put some of their flagship designs. That being said, 50mm lenses are an excellent choice and often the choice of top portrait photographers, and this excellent video will show you why they are so useful.
Coming to you from Becki and Chris, this great video will show you why a 50mm lens is so useful for portraiture work. While lenses like an 85mm or 135mm are often popular for portraiture work, 50mm is impressively versatile and often a better choice when you are shooting half- or full-body portraits, as the longer working distance of short telephoto lenses can make them difficult for such images. If you are newer to portrait photography and have not moved on from a kit lens yet, an affordable 50mm lens (a nifty fifty) is a fantastic choice to learn more about working with wider apertures and to explore your creativity. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
If you would like to learn more about portrait photography, be sure to check out our range of tutorials on the topic in the Fstoppers store.
The target audience must be under 16, I guess.
It's called the nifty-fifty for a reason.
It's called the nifty-fifty for a reason.
"likely not shooting 50mm for a landscape" haha i shoot landscapes on a 70-200 all the time. 50 is too wide for me XD
My portrait lenses in order of most used to least used: 85 1.8, 24-70 2.3, 50 1.4, 135 1.8.
The 50 is kind of like my 135 in that I don't use it very often, but when I want it, I really, really want it and I'm glad that I have it.