Top 5 Favorite Photography Lenses with Vanessa Joy
As a professional photographer, it’s important to always have an appropriate lens on hand for whatever situations come up during a shoot. However, we have limited bag space and limited budgets, so we cannot have every lens at our disposal. For those who aren’t professionals, the need to stretch the budget is even greater. That’s why I’m going to tell you about my five favorite photography lenses to shoot with. These lenses will provide great versatility for nearly any situation. I will be providing Canon lenses, but most other lens manufacturers have similar lenses (albeit not as good, #teamcanon). Jk. Not really.
50mm Prime Lens
A prime lens is a fixed focal length lens. While it may seem tedious to take some of the control over the focal length away, you can also zoom with your feet by moving further away or closer to your subjects. The tradeoff you’ll get is that prime lenses often have much crisper photos with a low aperture and shallow depth of field, which is great for capturing soft backgrounds and beautiful bokeh. The shallow depth of field also makes it easier to draw the viewer’s eye to the focal point. Granted, these lenses are a little more difficult to focus, but they do focus quickly, which helps offset that a little. In the Canon line, the 50mm prime is one of the fastest focusing lenses.
Prime lenses come in different focal lengths, but 50mm is great for almost anything. I use it for everything from portraits of individuals or couples to landscapes and roomscapes. With the 50mm, you’ll be able to capture 3/4 shots, face shots, and even group shots. The added compression of the 50mm allows you to get large groups in frame while still making them appear close together.
If you have an endless budget, then the Canon RF 50mm 1.2 lens is my personal favorite, but their new RF 50mm 1.8 is a much less expensive version that doesn’t skimp on quality. If you’re in need of EF lenses for DSLR cameras, then the EF equivalent lenses will do the job.
