This week's challenge: 50mm lens only

Some people believe that prime lenses, i.e., those with a fixed focus length are absolutely superior to zoom lenses. I am one of those guys. Why is this so? Let me give you a list of reasons

1. You are so much more in touch with your picture and the atmosphere. No lazy zooming that distorts the perspective. You zoom with your feet. Awesome!
2. Prime lenses are faster. For example the Canon lens that I am using is a 50mm f/1.4 lens. An aperture of 1.4 allows you to take low ISO shots in tough situations.
3. The picture is sharper. In fact the 50mm f/1.4 is probably one of the sharpest lenses ever.
4. Low aperture number = shallow depth of field = the subject is focused while the background is blurred. Also, the 50mm f/1.4 has a very nice bokeh.
5. I am using the 50mm lens on a 7D which results in an equivalent focal length of 80mm but the relation of sizes between objects in the picture are pretty close to the human eye.

Some more information can also be found here, here, and here. There are actually flickr groups solely dedicated to 50mm shots, see e.g., here and here.

Below two first impressions from a random walk through the city — 50mm only. The first one is a bicycle street light. I absolutely love the reflections in the glasses.

And the second one is a shot of a crowd taken from a balcony. Both shots were taken in Hannover, Germany close to where the Lister Meilen street festival is going to be this weekend. Actually, the crowd was right in front of one of the main stages.

More to come soon

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