18, 35 or 50?

OK, so I'm considering purchasing my third lens so far (Kit lens and telephoto already owned). I'm umming and aahing about what to get next though, and I think my biggest issue is, I haven't decided what kind of photographer I want to be.

I've looked at the above three sizes (bear in mind I have a DX sensor, so I know I'll get 1.5 times the focal length in reality), but still not sure which one would be my best starting point.

I love landscape photography. I go to the Lakes district quite a bit, and I live in an area surrounded by natural beauty. So I swayed towards the 18mm (or smaller really). But then I was asked by my sister to do her Wedding photos (alongside a professional, just to get some practise) and I was then swayed towards the 50mm, as I've heard it's great for portraits.

The 35 comes in right between the two. I could get some good portraits, and reasonable landscape sizes from this, but need some user experience feedback to help me decide. I've read loads of reviews on each from Magazines and websites, but they tend to focus on the picture quality, or the technical aspects of them. What I need is human feedback on how they've best used their prime lenses, so I can see where my final choice would be best suited.

I will probably buy a second or third prime lens in the future, but I've spend a fair few hundred on kit already so far this year, so my wife's tightening my reigns a little

I've never understood this theory that certain focal lengths are required for certain types of photography. Study composition and you'll see this is not the case. That being off my chest, and of those three lenses, I would suggest the 35mm as I think you'll find it the most flexible.
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Horoscope Fish said:

I've never understood this theory that certain focal lengths are required for certain types of photography. Study composition and you'll see this is not the case. That being off my chest, and of those three lenses, I would suggest the 35mm as I think you'll find it the most flexible.
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I'm with Paul.

I think it's just one of those stigma's that go with certain things. "Landscape? You need a shorter focal length for wider shot. Portrait? A prime lens with a wide aperture is best..." etc, etc.

I love taking portraits of my daughters using my 55-300mm lens (as attached) and using distance to get a better DOF, but a prime lens will give me that push into advancing my composition by forcing me to change the distance, angle, location, etc to get the better shot.

Schnick said:

I think it's just one of those stigma's that go with certain things. "Landscape? You need a shorter focal length for wider shot. Portrait? A prime lens with a wide aperture is best..." etc, etc.

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IMO, there are different types of landscapes:

Of those three types of landscapes only the first really requires a wide angle lens and yes, my definitions are clearly subjective and open to interpretation. Again, this all just my understanding so take it for what it's worth.

Schnick said:

I love taking portraits of my daughters using my 55-300mm lens (as attached) and using distance to get a better DOF, but a prime lens will give me that push into advancing my composition by forcing me to change the distance, angle, location, etc to get the better shot.

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I like primes for that reason as well, it gets you MOVING and in moving you change perspective. I shoot portraits with a 70-200mm. I consider myself a "generalist" photographer; I shoot almost everything with a 70-200mm, or a 50mm prime. My girlfriend shoots a D5300 and my (very expensive) Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art series lens is all but welded to her camera. It's all she feels she needs and let me tell you, she does amaaaazing things with that lens.
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Use those (18,35,50) focal lengths and see which you like the best !!
I prefer the 35mm.Makes me think about composition.


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Horoscope Fish said:

IMO, there are different types of landscapes:

1. Grand (or Grand Vista) - These are not quite panoramic but are really wide shots and these are of necessity taken with ultra/wide angle lenses. Bear in mind that that WA lenses cram more into the frame at the expense of making everything in the frame SMALLER; making your primary subject more prone to being lost in a sea of subordinate elements.
2. Contextual - These are not as wide as GV's but are wider than "Intimate Landscapes". Contextual Landscapes have a strong primary subject with a degree of... well... context: Subordinate elements or subject matter that supports and explains the primary subject in it's environment. Contextual Landscapes are stories: Here's this thing (the subject) and here is this things story (surrounding subject matter).
3. Intimate - Landscapes with a strongly isolated central subject. Often closeup, but not always; an entire mountain could still be an "intimate" if it's tightly cropped for instance.​

Of those three types of landscapes only one really requires a wide angle lens and my definitions are clearly subjective and open to interpretation. Again, this all just my understanding so take it for what it's worth..

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I completely appreciate and agree with what you're saying here. I suppose at the moment I'd be considered a generalist too, and honestly, I don't know yet if I want to focus on a particular subject. It's why I carry both my 18-55 and 55-300 lens around all the time. I'm still learning, and still developing. Nothing in the diploma I did said anything about the types of landscapes. I know about choosing a subject, having something in the foreground and not leaving loads of negative space, etc...stuff that makes a good composition, but the types of landscape photography available are never explained. Maybe in the higher course?

And to Adit - The problem with being able to choose the focal length is where, I believe, Prime lenses stem from. Having a set focal length forces you to think about your composition, position, distance, angle....everything. More so than just "Oh, that looks good, I'll zoom in and get a good crop on it". Instead you're forced to think "Oh, that looks good, where can I stand for the best composition? Where will me the most detail? Is there anything around I can use to frame it...?" etc. In my opinion, it's being forced to think like that which is going to help me develop my skills as a photographer better than having the ability to shift the focal length of the lens I have on my camera.

Back on topic though, I think the 35 is going to get the most votes out of the 3 I listed. I'd welcome any feedback on larger / shorter prime's if anyone has any experience with them. They're not cheap, so I'd rather collect as much information as I can about this before I spend my money.

I went through the same exercise recently and decided on the 35mm Great lens and very sharp. In using it I find that I would really like it a little wider most of the time. 18mm would be to wide and mos of us have lenses that we could use to that anyway. Something like a 28mm would be nice.

I've got a short prime (14mm) and although it is great for wide shots, it is too restrictive to carry along as a single lens. Sure you'll shoot everything wide in the beginning but it becomes old fast. Even when I do purely landscapes, I'd have to carry along my 18-35mm or some other primes to have some options. I even shot landscapes with 70mm and 150mm. It's all possible.

I personally find a 35mm or 50mm as single prime better. They also would have some restrictions but I still could shoot it all day long covering a range of subjects.

If you always carry along more lenses it doesn't matter much but the shortest will probably see least use.

Schnick said:

I completely appreciate and agree with what you're saying here. I suppose at the moment I'd be considered a generalist too, and honestly, I don't know yet if I want to focus on a particular subject. It's why I carry both my 18-55 and 55-300 lens around all the time. I'm still learning, and still developing. Nothing in the diploma I did said anything about the types of landscapes. I know about choosing a subject, having something in the foreground and not leaving loads of negative space, etc...stuff that makes a good composition, but the types of landscape photography available are never explained. Maybe in the higher course?

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No photography teacher I've ever had told me there are three types of landscape; it's something I've intuited, I guess, from looking at a lot of landscape photography and in trying to improve my own. I don't necessarily take credit for the concept but neither have I heard anyone else postulate them as I have.

As for any other focal lengths you might want to consider, I'll just toss this out anecdotally... When I was shooing DX primarily I bought a Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC HSM Art for my D7100. Unfortunately what I found was that the lens would not focus properly unless I was using the center focus point: if I moved away from that specific focus point all hell broke loose. I would like to think it was just my copy of that lens, or a weird interaction that was one of those one-in-a-million "things" that just happen because for me there was something really magical about shooting a DX body at 30mm. It felt... PERFECT. I really can't explain it any better than that and I know it doesn't make any sense; 5mm really shouldn't have a huge impact, right? But somehow, it did. So there you have my little anecdote. If you can try shooting at 30mm (tape down an 18-55mm or something, perhaps?) I can only suggest you try it and see what you think.
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I was trying to suggest that you use your 18-55 @35 & @50 mm and see which focal length you are happy with
Some like the 35 others like the 50.Both lenses are excellent.But what you like is the question

Edit: I own a 35mm.Amazing lens fantastic optics.I find it perfect.


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One size of lens really does not fit all situations.

We do have some basics.

For DX, the "normal" lens is about 30mm. That makes a 35mm lens be a mild telephoto on DX (or at very most, might still consider it a "normal" lens).

But landscapes often want wide angle, which 35mm is not (not on DX).

35mm is mild wide angle on FX, but it takes 24mm to be moderate wide angle (on FX). For DX, that 24mm equivalent becomes 16mm (for moderate wide angle on DX).

A 16-85mm zoom would normally work great for very many situations.

Adit - I understood what you were suggesting, but there's two issues I have with that:

1 - The 18-55mm lens I have only has certain focal length markers, so it's not exact.
2 - The widest aperture on this lens is f/3.5. On a prime, I can get as low as f/1.4, giving better bokeh and depth of field control (obviously for portraiture). So comparing the two is difficult.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think I'm drawn to the 35mm option at the moment, though that 30mm suggestion sounds like a nice option.

It'll depend on how close your subjects are. I just went through the yee and yaw between a cheaper 50 1.8 and a more expensive 85 1.8. I already owned the 35 1.8 and got a deal on the 85 1.8 just the other day.

With the 35 the typical subject can be as close as 3ft and fill the frame but for close portraits there's some distortion of faces. On the 85 I gotta be 8-10ft away for the same fill with zero distortion. The 50 would be somewhere in between. This makes shooting in a room harder with the longer lens. 35 anywhere in the room, 50 across the room, 85 backed into a corner if at all. Also I use my 35 for most walking around shots when I don't want to break out a bigger/heavier zoom. A lot of reviews complain about the bokeh of the 35, all you gotta do is get some seperation between the subject and the background and it'll look good enough for 7 out 10 people, the remaining 3 probably only like their own pics anyways.

in reference to a wider prime, it'll fit more in a frame but composition wise you will need to have something in the foreground or you will just end up with tiny little subjects mid way in your frame. For the price of a 20mm afs prime you can get a 10-24 or 12-24 and have a little freedom of composition.

Hi Schnick

I know this thread was a while ago, but I can't seem to see the answer to the question of what did you finally decide on?

I'm tryind to make the same decision and am veering towards a new 50mm 1.8G (over the 50mm 1.4G used or a 35mm).

Sashina

Sashina said:

Hi Schnick

I know this thread was a while ago, but I can't seem to see the answer to the question of what did you finally decide on?

I'm tryind to make the same decision and am veering towards a new 50mm 1.8G (over the 50mm 1.4G used or a 35mm).

Sashina

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I think you will find the 50mm is a bit wide for a DX camera. The nifty 50 term came from the 35mm film cameras many years ago. It gave basically the same field of view as the human eye did so it was the standard lens on most cameras. With the DX camera to get the same effect you will need to use the 35mm lens. That is the closest you can get to the 50mm in the DX. take your standard kit lens if you have one and set it on 50mm and do not change change the zoom. Now go walk around for a while and shoot without moving the zoom off of 50mm. Now set it on 35mm and do that same. Be sure to shoot indoors on single people and small groups. like 3-5 people like you might get in normal shooting of family groups. When I did this I found that at 50mm I could not always back up enough to get the shot I needed at times. With my 35mm I have a much better chance of getting the shot I want.

Sashina said:

Hi Schnick

I know this thread was a while ago, but I can't seem to see the answer to the question of what did you finally decide on?

I'm tryind to make the same decision and am veering towards a new 50mm 1.8G (over the 50mm 1.4G used or a 35mm).

Sashina

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Hi Sashina,

You're right, this was some time ago, and I'm ashamed to say I still haven't made the purchase! I promised myself with birthday money, and then with Christmas money, but my wife seems to find other things for me to spend it on...

I am swayed to the 35mm option, as Don explains. It's harder to get those good portait photos at 50mm fixed than it is at 35mm. Although the DOF on a 50mm at 1.8/f will make your subject stand out more, it'd be much more difficult to get them framed properly at this length.

At the moment, I'm still shooting primarily with my 55-300mm lens at the 55mm end of it (with 3.5/f, it gives better bokeh than my 18-55mm at the top end of the lens).

I am still knew to all this, and have a limited budget, but I will share what conclusions I have come to... I shoot a lot, relatively, because it is good therapy for me. I have a Sigma 18-250 that I keep on my camera mostly because I walk my country road a lot and it is very versatile. I cannot pack a bag when I go for a walk... and changing lenses on the side of the road is just a bit risky.

What I have found is that I wish I had two more lens... a super wide angle cause I shoot a lot of views at 18 and wish it was a bit wider something in the 10-20mm range. There is often something I would like to include in the shot but it is not quite wide enough. The other lens is the Tamron 150-600. I want that for Moon shots, and the geese that fly over from the pond and this ONE Red Tail Hawk that purches in the top of a 60 foot Cedar tree that is always JUST out of reach. When I try to get a shot of him I am just a little too close and he is gone... and I am NOT fast enough to track him.

When I look at my pictures I have taken I have a lot at 18 and a lot at 250... With the lenses you have what focal length do you find yourself using the most and wanting just a bit more.

Thanks Don and Danno, and good to hear your update (of sorts!) Schnick

I've just looked in Lightroom and done a short analysis of focal lengths since I got the only lens I now own (18-200, used on a DX body) and it looks like I take about 15% at 18mm, 15% at 200m and the rest fairly evenly spread in between, with the heaviest weighting around the wider end... but still very well spread!
What this doesn't tell you is that of my 5 star images, the weighting is towards the 200 end, and many of my favourite images - and the style I'd like to explore more - have involved heavy cropping anyway.
I'm not looking to replace my zoon with a 50mm. In fact, I want to use the 50mm for its wider aperture and good bokeh... More of a controlled 'studio' setting working on little projects (still lifes, food, interio details... like my Christmas images)... rather than somewhere where I may want or need the zoom capacity. Make sense

I think I'm ready to buy the 50mm... ... and I might just get the 35mm as well since they're both relatively cheap.

Update as of today: Shame many places are out of stock of both right now!

Cheers

Sashina

I haven't had my camera out of it's bag since about October, when I took photos at my sisters wedding. I would have loved the prime lens for then, but I just didn't have the money at the time.

I really need to get out with my camera more and work on my composition. I'll also focus on what lengths I use most often. I'm mainly into landscapes, so will probably be the wider end, but I do like my portrait pictures, which is why I was torn between the 18 and 35mm options originally.

I've never taken photo of food. That's one subject I really can't get my head around! lol