Who here would sooner eat their 50mm lens than shoot with it?

Hate the 50mm ? No, but it's getting rotten on the shelf ...
I found 50mm too near or too far, never at the good distance (and yes i am a 35-85mm guy)

Edit: Oh and when i use it, i force myself to use it, just to justify that some time i need to clean the dusts on it, and no, it's not about the quality of the optic, it's a very good one, but it's ... hum ... 50mm that don't fit my needs

I suppose it depends on what format. When I was shooting film I rarely used 50mm opting to shoot with 35mm and 85mm. I made a lot of money with my Nikkor AI-S 85mm f/2 shooting theatre.

Nowadays I love my EF 50mm f/1.4 for shooting portraits on a crop, while I also have an EF 85mm f/1.8.

My 50L is my most used lens.
At times want wider, at time I want more reach,
but still it remains on my camera most of the time.

I can't stand 85mm for some unknown reason, but I do take portraits and candids with my 100L.

I guess I could eat it if I got really hungry.
I wonder if it tastes 'sharp'? Probably not...

If I could only have one lens it would be a 50mm.

absplastic wrote in post #17684214
I've read a lot of silly things like this on these forums. There was another thread about tripods where someone claimed "photos taken from eye level are boring". Think about that one, specifically about what percentage of photos taken with DSLRs are taken with the camera at the photographer's eye level...

Interesting subjects and composition make for interesting photos. Focal length will certainly factor into composition, but here are no inherently boring focal lengths, nor any boring values for fields of view. If all your photos at 50mm are boring, it's not the lens's fault.

I would guess maybe 1% were taken at eye level. I am always trying to be down low, or up high to change the perspective. Eye level makes them look like everyone else's photos. Most photographic books also suggest getting away from eye level.

I use a 50mm a lot of crop, but I also shoot a lot of models outdoors so the space issue with a crop doesn't come into play quite as often.

troehr wrote in post #17684972
I would guess maybe 1% were taken at eye level.

Are you speaking about your own photos, or are you guessing that 1% of all photos taken with DSLRs are taken at eye level?

mannetti21 wrote in post #17622077

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/arMP​ux First Dance by Mannetti Photo, on Flickr

This photo (by mannetti21) looks like a good candidate for a 50mm. Interior shot with limited working distance, people in the background gently blurred. I could imagine a 35mm too wide and an 85mm too long. Just a hunch.

texshooter wrote in post #17685168
This photo looks like a good candidate for a 50mm. Interior shot with limited working distance, people in the background gently blurred. I could imagine a 35mm too wide and an 85mm too long. Just a hunch.

Wonderful photo and good point!

texshooter wrote in post #17685168
This photo (by mannetti21) looks like a good candidate for a 50mm. Interior shot with limited working distance, people in the background gently blurred. I could imagine a 35mm too wide and an 85mm too long. Just a hunch.

Yep, I agree, and the standard lens like no other makes you feel like you're right there, in the room. Brilliant shot.

texshooter wrote in post #17685168
This photo (by mannetti21) looks like a good candidate for a 50mm. Interior shot with limited working distance, people in the background gently blurred. I could imagine a 35mm too wide and an 85mm too long. Just a hunch.

35mm on a 20MP sensor is an easy crop here though. And 35mm at F1.4~F2 would have gently blurred them too.

Just a thought!

Very best,

texshooter wrote in post #17685168
This photo (by mannetti21) looks like a good candidate for a 50mm. Interior shot with limited working distance, people in the background gently blurred. I could imagine a 35mm too wide and an 85mm too long. Just a hunch.

You forget one important thing ... it was taken with a 7D ... not a FF camera, so the photographer is as far as a 85mm guy (80mm if you want to be exact)

Reservoir Dog wrote in post #17685608
You forget one important thing ... it was taken with a 7D ... not a FF camera, so the photographer is as far as a 85mm guy (80mm if you want to be exact)

And the 50mm goes down for the count...

texshooter wrote in post #17685618
And the 50mm goes down for the count...

Yep, and may be more than we think

There is a lot of misunderstanding (not sure if i use the good word for "misunderstanding"), but anyway, my meaning is that often photographers that tell you they are a 50mm guys use their 50mm on a crop sensor, so in fact they are not a 50mm guys but a 85mm guys, same for the people which tell you they are 35mm but use it on a crop sensor, those guys are in fact a 50mm guys.

At the end who are the true 50mm guys, only those who use a 50mm on a FF or those who use the 35mm on a crop sensor (just IMHO)

Reservoir Dog wrote in post #17685628
y meaning is that often photographers that tell you they are a 50mm guys use their 50mm on a crop sensor, so in fact they are not a 50mm guys but a 85mm guys, same for the people which tell you they are 35mm but use it on a crop sensor, those guys are in fact a 50mm guys.

We're also in a weird place right now, where there are still enough people around who came from using 35mm film cameras that speaking of field-of-view in terms of how a focal length looks on that particular frame size is still a useful reference standard. And of course there are enough lenses out there that were designed to project a 35mm frame sized image that SLR manufacturers like Canon and Nikon still make sensors the size of the old film standard and will no doubt continue to do so for several more years. But now we have all kinds of competing systems, being designed from scratch without this backwards compatibility with film size to consider. Eventually, these old-school manufacturers will have to get past this limitation to compete. As the 35mm film lens mount formats become extinct in favor of digital-only ones, relating everything to 35mm film is going to become awkward, because no new generations of photographers will relate by means of experience (neither of my kids have ever even seen a 35mm film camera, to the best of my knowledge).

A new way of marketing lenses in terms of field-of-view and light-gathering/depth-of-field capability will no doubt emerge, so that people will be able to more easily compare systems apples to apples without having to do a bunch of focal length or aperture equivalency math in their heads.