The Allure of the 50mm Lens

For the longest time, I never knew precisely why I adored the 50mm lens. Shooting with it felt utterly natural; I could envision the image in my mind before even raising the camera to my eye. I used to think it might have been a learned habit. After all, I shot with a 50mm lens exclusively so I know it inside and out. But I've recently discovered that the 50mm lens offers something truly unique.

The 50mm lens, as it turns out, provides us with a depth of field and a compression of foreground and background akin to what the human eye naturally perceives. The 50mm focal length works its magic by compressing the subjects in a photograph just as our eyes do. I'm not talking about aperture settings; I'm referring to how the 50mm lens affects the relative distances and spatial relationships between objects in a scene.

Consider this: when you look at an image shot with a 28mm lens, you can see everything—the foreground, the background, and everything in between. However, if you capture the same scene with a 50mm lens, objects seem to overlap or touch each other more, creating a different visual effect. It's not about fish-eye or warping lens distortions but the alteration of space between objects, image compression.

In essence, the 50mm lens sees the world in a way that closely mirrors our own perception. I've always intuitively known this, though I once mistakenly attributed it to lens distortion. While the field of view does approximate what we see with our eyes, if you aim for an even more accurate representation, a 40mm lens might be your choice.

So, why the 50mm? If I'm honest, it came down to trial and error, as well as my comfort level with this particular lens. I conducted a test by sifting through thousands of my images, thanks to metadata, to determine which focal length I used most during my early years of photography. It was a time when I had a 28mm, 100mm, 35mm, 50mm, and an 85mm lens, each seemingly suited for different purposes. However, the 50mm emerged as the clear winner. This choice wasn't just about the lens's historical significance or the influence of other renowned photographers. It was about personal comfort and effectiveness.

You might wonder why limit oneself to a single lens when more options seem to offer more creativity and flexibility. For me, the decision to use only one lens presented a unique challenge. By restricting myself to one tool, I'm pushed to think outside the box and view the world from a different perspective. This limitation forces me to focus on how to take a photograph, rather than which lens to use.

An added bonus of using a single lens and camera is the elimination of choice fatigue. It also lightened my gear load, making photography more convenient. It's easier to maintain consistency and build a coherent body of work with fewer variables.

By using only one camera body, one lens, and one film stock or preset equivalent, my work exhibits a cohesive and timeless quality. This choice has become increasingly valuable as I compile large bodies of work spanning decades.

So, why stick with the 50mm lens? It's because it aligns with how I see the world. Anything else just doesn't capture my vision or convey my perspective quite like the 50mm lens.