Prime Lenses

Many people ask me what kind of lens they should buy. They've bought a DSLR and it came with a kit lens, but they want to expand their possibilities and think a new lens is a good way to do it. I agree! Buying a new lens (although it can be expensive) is a great way to get you to take new and different shots. It's kind of like buying a new guitar. Whenever your creativity goes away and you are never playing for "fun" anymore, buy a new guitar! You'll be playing it everyday again.

This blog will be about prime lenses. A prime lens is NOT a zoom lens. It has a fixed zoom range, but the beauty of these lenses is the very large fixed aperture that accompanies most of them. A prime lens is fast and enables you to shoot in much darker situations without having to use flash. For example, I shot the below picture in my daughters room at night while she was sleeping. The lights are off!!! My 85mm prime lens opens up to F/1.8. So I opened it up, cranked the ISO to 2000 on the D3, and I was able to shoot the shot at 1/100 of a second.



The picture has been untouched in Photoshop or anything else. Yes, it's a little under exposed, but her room was dark. I mean... no lights! There is no way I could have gotten this frame with the F/3.5-5.6 lens that came with my first DSLR. I would have been shooting with a shutter speed of at least 1 second which would have required a tripod and that's not happening because if I wake her up, my wife would use the tripod on my head!

Another great feature about these lenses is that they are so small, you can fit some of them in your pocket. Whenever I travel for vacation, I take one camera, my 18-200mm VR, and the 50mm f/1.4. The 18-200 will do just about everything, but when I need the extra F Stops, I pull the 50mm out of my pocket and voila! Here's a quick picture to show the size of my three lenses:



So... I love these fast, big aperture prime lenses. I have an 85mm f/1.8, a 50mm f/1.4, and a 35mm f/2.0. So get one, open it up, and go shoot in the dark! These are great for no-flash reception shots!

The next question would be this, "which zoom range do I need?" The answer is, it depends. If you want to start out with just one, I would probably go with a 50mm lens. It's a great because you can take a full length portrait of someone inside a room. With the 85mm, you would have to back up too far and in small rooms, you would run into a wall! However, the 85mm is a great little portrait lens! Just for a quick example, here are three shots that will show the difference between the 85mm, 50mm, and 35mm: