Nikon 50mm Lens

I’ve been using Nikon DSLR’s for about 5 years, my first camera was the cheap and cheerful D40, now I shoot with the mid level D300, I’m desperate to trade up to the full frame D3s but the £3500 price tag is putting me off for now!

Until recently most of my ‘camera cash’ has been splashed out on expensive lens, I have a sigma wide angle, ultra fast 200mm telephoto lens and the ‘everyday-do-everything’ 18mm ~ 200mm Nikon lens, the 18-200 is a brilliant lens for nearly all situations.

If like me you get fed up of changing lenses then you’ll love the versatility. The only problem with the 18~200 is you get very lazy when taking shots. Rather than moving around a subject to explore angles and perspective you just end up zoom in and out, which doesn’t make for interesting photographs.

It started to really bug me that my photos were becoming flat, lacking depth and frankly looked really boring! So I decide to look at a few lenses that would give more dynamic results.

After reading a few blogs and forums I got interested in going back to the old school and shooting with a standard fixed 50mm lens. I was shocked when I saw the prices of these lenses! a Nikon 50mm with an ultra fast 1.8 f-stop was only £109 on amazon, that’s a Nikon lens with amazing low light performance for less than a cheap compact camera. For some reason I often find myself shooting in bad light conditions, so a lens which gives good results in low light without flash did appeal to me. After reading this review on Amazon I decided to order the 50mm.

“I’ve been seduced by ultrazoom lenses and cameras over the years and I had forgotten how good photography felt when you move you body rather than zoom in and out with your lens.

The other reviews quite rightly highlight the excellent performance of the wide range of aperture settings from 1.8 to 22 so I don’t want to repeat what they have said.<

I’ve been using my D300 with an 18-200mm lens for most of the time – occasionally swapping for a wide angle 10-20mm lens when needed. Both are fairly heavy, but very versatile. The 50mm is the first prime lens I have used since I started digital photography some 7 years ago.

My whole attitude to the subject matter changes when I can’t just zoom in and out, I find myself composing much more interesting shots. This has been a great addition for my DSLR.”

I can totally agree with the review on Amazon, this lens will fundamentally change the way you look at photography, when you consider the price is a give away compared to other lenses you’d be mad not to buy one of these.

Here’s a couple of portrait shots I took with the Nikon 50mm lens.