Is a 50mm lens worth it for portraits?

Tbehl1214

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I have an older camera, the Nikon D5000. I currently only use the two lens that I received with the kit (18-55, 55-200). I am still working on learning everything, but want to know if the 50mm or 35mm (with the autofocus since that is what works on my camera) would help me improve my portraits. I mainly take pictures of babies, toddlers, and small families...no big groups and mainly outside although I do take pictures of my kids inside. I am trying to take a sharp photo, but would also like to try bokeah. So, my questions are:

1. If I mainly take portraits of kids, etc. outdoors, would the 35mm or 50mm be worth buying?
2. If so, which would be my better option?

I realize that there are better lens out there for portraits, but I cannot afford much at this time since I stay at home with my kids. :)

Thank you!

(Also, I realize that there are a TON of forums out there about this, but they are several years old (2011) and everyone has completely different views so I am lost. Thank you for understanding!)
 
Typically, portraiture calls for longer lenses to minimize distortion often seen with shorter (wide angle) lenses. If you compose and frame normally, you're going to be quite close to your subject(s), causing foreshortening and distortion. For that camera a 50mm lens is probably still too short unless you are shooting group shots from 12-20 feet away. Your 55-200 would be a more useful focal length, IMO.

Having said that, I will now answer the question posed in the title:

The Nikkor AF-S 50mm 1.8 G can be obtained for a reasonable price, and either new or used, yes, it is "worth it". Get one. Just don't expect your portraiture to be at the optimum focal length.
 
Typically, portraiture calls for longer lenses to minimize distortion often seen with shorter (wide angle) lenses. If you compose and frame normally, you're going to be quite close to your subject(s), causing foreshortening and distortion. For that camera a 50mm lens is probably still too short unless you are shooting group shots from 12-20 feet away. Your 55-200 would be a more useful focal length, IMO.

Having said that, I will now answer the question posed in the title:

The Nikkor AF-S 50mm 1.8 G can be obtained for a reasonable price, and either new or used, yes, it is "worth it". Get one. Just don't expect your portraiture to be at the optimum focal length.
Thank you! I have been working a lot with my 55-200, but can't seem to get clear subjects! That is the main reason why I was going to try a different lens for a while.
 
The D5000 is a cropsensor so the 50mm lens would be the equivalent of 75mm, a pretty good portrait lens setting.
The 18-55 will give the OP a range of approx. 27 to 82mm, from slightly wide, through normal into slightly long.
But that is a kit lens so may not be the best quality.
 
The AF-S 50mm f1.8 is the usual choice for a portrait lens for Nikon DX cameras. Its the cheapest FX lens with a builtin motor (thus able to autofocus on D3x00 and D5x00 cameras) and optically pretty decent.

As the previous poster pointed out, its a 75mm equivalent on a crop sensor. The classic portrait lenses are 85mm, 105mm, or maybe even 135mm, on full frame. Thus 75mm is pretty close already.

For DX there are only 4 DX prime lenses from Nikon - the fisheye, two macro lenses, and the 35mm f1.8. Every other demand for a prime lens has to be satisfied by using a FX prime lens instead - and for wide angle, this doesnt only get very expensive quickly, but also runs out of options quickly.

Thus it would be really nice if Nikon would ever find it in their heart to produce, say, a 9.5mm f3.5 DX (14mm equiv), 12mm f2.8 DX (18mm equiv), 14mm f1.8 DX (21mm equiv), 16mm f1.4 DX (24mm equiv), 18mm f1.8 DX (28mm equiv), 24mm f1.4 DX (35mm equiv), 58mm f1.4 DX (85mm equiv) and 70mm f1.8 DX (105mm equiv) line of DX prime lenses, additionally to to the already existing 35mm f1.8 DX (53mm equiv) - but so far they seem to rather prefer to create even another dark superzoom instead. Or overpriced poor build quality slow autofocus poor optical performers like the AF-S 16-80mm f2.8-4.0 VR. They even dont really have a good affordable wide angle zoom yet, like Canon does with the EF-S 10-18mm f4.5-5.6 IS.


The kit lens 18-55mm works best if one avoids the focal lenghts extremes and stops the lens nicely down, to about f/8.

The 55-200mm works nicely from about 55mm to about 105mm or some such, even wide open; above that it starts to get soft.
 
Thank you! I have been working a lot with my 55-200, but can't seem to get clear subjects! That is the main reason why I was going to try a different lens for a while.
You're welcome! As to the 55-200, there may be extraneous factors causing the lack of sharpness. To begin with, it's not what you would call a top-flight lens, so some of the softness could be a fault of the lens itself. Another factor is; we often find beginners who place a UV filter on the front of each lens, just as the person who sold the filter told you to do. Is there a filter on the front? If so, remove it.

Next; go back into the camera file or use your editing software and turn on the focus area indicator. That will be a red rectangle. You should get the focus area in the most critical area of your subject, so for portraits, it is usually considered the closest eye. If your focus area is not where it should be, then learn how to get that focus area on the person's eye.

Next; consider the shutter speed. It should be fast enough to "freeze" camera shake and the natural motion of your models. Everybody moves. Models move and photographers move, so maintain a fast shutter speed to capture a smaller moment in time.

Finally, the aperture. Some lenses, maybe even most lenses will not be sharp at all apertures, and may exhibit a "sweet spot" of sharpness somewhere in the middle range of focal lengths. Do some testing to try to determine if your lens has a favorite aperture. And of course, a thin depth of field will show some areas of your subject in focus, while other areas, both behind and in front of the focal plane will be OOF. When making portraits, it is a good idea to consider the "thickness" of your subject and make sure the DOF will make everything in that area reasonably in focus. You can check your DOF at various sites online, and I even downloaded one for my smart phone, so I can determine the DOF wherever I am.

No, really finally: Just to clarify something about the focal length of lenses and the "crop factor". Any lens you put on your camera will be whatever focal length that it was made for. That doesn't change. Whether zoom or prime, the focal length will not "change" magically into some other focal length when you put it on a DX camera with a APS-C size sensor. All the sensor size means is that it is gathering light from a PORTION of the image circle. (The middle part of it) So a 50mm lens will still be a 50mm lens on your camera. Just taking a bite out of the middle of the projected image circle doesn't change anything about the focal length of the lens out in front.
 
Typically, portraiture calls for longer lenses to minimize distortion often seen with shorter (wide angle) lenses.


Distortion in portaits is caused by to close a subject distance, not by focal length. If you keep your distance (2 to 3 meters in a typical portrait situation), the geometrical result will be the same.

Shorter focal lengths are only more difficult when it comes to composition, A 24mm portrait shot from 3 Meter distance includes a lot of environmental information that can provide a cluttered impression. This compositional aspect leads to people shooting 85mm lenses for portraits. That said the D5000 crops the 50mm angle to a 75mm equivalent.

SO: Keep your distance and the 1.8/50G will be a great portrait lens with bokeh wide open (at aperture f=1.8)

Now the trouble: Shooting @1.8 in bright daylight will max out the 1/4000 of a secnd even at 1 EV under base ISO (which is 200 ISO in this case). So if you want bokeh shots you might need a neutral density filter...

*
 
50mm has become a rather modern portrait lens for kids, even on fullframe. Your 200mm at f5.6 will give you better bokeh though than the 50mm f1.8, if you choose the same framing.
Nevertheless I very much like the look of a 50mm lens shot wide open. What you need to consider though is that you need to stop down the lens for group shots if you want to have all faces in focus.
 
I hate 50 mm for portraits! a fast 85 mm prime is a better choice in my opinion. even with a crop sensor.
 
I hate 50 mm for portraits! a fast 85 mm prime is a better choice in my opinion. even with a crop sensor.

Indoors you are often "too long" with that. Size does matter here. Outside? Piece of cake!
 
I hate 50 mm for portraits! a fast 85 mm prime is a better choice in my opinion. even with a crop sensor.
I think the 85mm would work well for H&S portraits around 15 feet or so, and full-body shots from 25-30 ft. Most people don't have large enough rooms in their house or apartment to accommodate the 85mm.

As I wrote in my post #2 above: "If you compose and frame normally, you're going to be quite close to your subject(s), causing foreshortening and distortion." the photographer should step back and frame wide with the 50mm to minimize distortion.
 
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...the 50mm lens would be the equivalent of 75mm...
As a point of order, this is not totally correct. The 50mm lens will give you the same field of view as that of a 75mm on an FF sensor, but it will still render the image as a 50mm lens. Focal length is focal length and doesn't change regardless of the camera's sensor size. The advantage of an FF lens on a DX body is that the smaller sensor will only use less of the edges of the lens (the area where distortion and softness is most noticeable).

Distortion in portaits is caused by to close a subject distance, not by focal length...
Yes and no. A shorter focal length will impart less distortion when used at greater subject-to-camera distances, but the problem is that the greater the subject-to-camera distance, smaller the subject is in the frame. A 24mm lens used at 3m is going to provide a MUCH smaller subject in the frame than a 50 or greater.

I would suggest not buying anything at the moment. I think what you need to do first is actually determine WHY you're experiencing issues with your current kit. The two lenses you have are both verycapable, especially when used at middle apertures and focal lengths. Post some of your images here along with full EXIF data and let's see if we can't see where the cause of the problem lays.
 
A 50 mm lens puts the photographer quite close to the limit of a subject's 'comfort zone'.
Many subjects get real uncomfortable having the photographer that close, and it shows in the subject with them looking stiff.

I used a 50 mm prime lens, but rarely. The 50 usually got used in environmental portrait situations where I didn't have sufficient room to get back away from the subject so I could use a longer focal length.

For shooting portraits my go-to focal length, DX or FX, was 200 mm.
My second favorite focal length was 135 mm.
My 3rd choice was 105 mm and my 4th choice was 85 mm.

For many group portraits I used a 300 mm focal length.
 
KmH: You got spacions environments and a lot of light obviously. On film I shot 90% with an 85mm lens. Even wide open that requires some luck and skill on a 400 ISO film. Northern Eurpe is not a well lit place and I always hated to use flash light, although I do use it if unavoidable (tomorrow I have such a job: Kids & art)...
 
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The 55-300 is a slow focuser, and its maximum aperture specifications are poor, compared against a "fast-aperture" lens of f/1.8 maximum. The 50mm AF-S G Nikkor would be a decent lens for portraiture on an APS-C Nikon, and it WILL autofocus on your particular Nikon camera. Sometimes these types of "slow" zoom lenses, especially ones that are not fast focusers, are difficult to use, depending on the light level, the type of shooting environment, and the camera in use (D90 vs say a D500=big,big,big focusing differences), and the user's skill level and how the user is using the autofocusing system.

The thing about consumer zoom lenses is that they offer consumer-level performance; a fast prime lens like a 50/1.8 offers pretty easy one-tap focus acquisition, and with the wide aperture of f/1.8, getting a good solid focus lock is easy in marginal light.

I would not expect "miracles" from the 50mm lens, but it will give you one, single focal length to work with, which will lead you to the point of being able to pre-envision exactly what the images will look like, in normal, everyday portraiture situations. Working distances of six to 20 feet will be the best for that lens on an APS-C camera. Being able to mentally pre-visualize exactly what a picture will look like is one of the major benefits of using single focal length or prime lenses.

Beware of misinformation on what a lens "is" or "what it acts like" when it is used on different format sizes, since there's a lot of misinformation going around.
 

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