Hello LCC members,

The humble and sometimes forgotten 50mm f1.8 prime lens is something every photographer should have in their camera bag. Why, well for two reasons it is a fast lens at f1.8 and there are very inexpensive.

The Canon 50mm f1.8 goes for about $125.00 it has been jokingly called the “plastic fantastic” as the housing is made of cheap feeling plastic. I have one and it works great!

For all who shoot with Nikon cameras they also have a version of this 50mm f1.8 lens. It sells for about $105.00

It is great to have one of these in your bag for low-light situations. The best part, they are very light-weight. The Canon Lens weighs in at 4.6 Oz. and the Nikon weighs in at 5.44 Oz. The 50mm is also great for street photography because of the small size and that fast f1.8 aperture. They also produce some nice Bokeh

In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens.  Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”.

The other effect you get at large aperture settings f1,f1.8, f2.0, f2.8  is isolation of a single subject in an image or you could call it a small slice of sharp focus.

Here are some example images from a hike I took on Eagle Trail in Grassy Waters North last weekend. The photos were shot handheld, camera used was Canon 5D MII, aperture settings of f1.8 – f5. bracketed -2 , 0 , +2 and exposure blended using photomatix pro.

Feel free to leave questions and comments.

-Steve