Buying your own 50mm lens but struggling to figure out how to use it correctly? Is that the problem you’re having right now? Luckily for you, let’s take a look at these tips for the best use of 50mm lenses.
The best use of 50mm tips
1. Use a lens filter
By installing a special diffusion filter or neutral density filter on your 50mm lens, you can reduce the exposure of your shot without changing the exposure Settings. As a result, you can use a slower shutter speed and a wider aperture without overexposing the image.
Be careful when using such filters. For example, if you set the aperture and shutter speed accordingly to F /3.5 and 1/50, but adjust the ISO to 100, your image will still be overexposed by three gears. To solve this problem, you can use a 3-level filter. It ensures proper exposure.
2. Don’t limit yourself to F /1.8
Don’t lower the aperture to F /1.8 just because you can use it. I know it’s tempting to do this, but it’s not always good for your essay. An aperture of F /1.8 produces a very narrow depth of field.
This means that achieving clarity on the elements you want to focus on will require you to be very precise. This can be time-consuming and problematic.
For example, when taking portraits, you might end up with a set of photos in which some parts of the face will be in sharp focus, but the eyes you want to focus on may be blurry. If you are going to create a bokeh, I recommend starting at F /2.8. This can still achieve excellent bokeh but is not as challenging as F /1.8.
3. Use high shutter speeds
One of the benefits of being able to use a low aperture such as F2.8 is that it enables you to use faster shutter speeds. Try to set the shutter speed to at least 1/200 when taking pictures of children if they are active. It’s much better to increase the ISO to get the desired shutter speed, rather than trying to use F1.8, unless you’re very sure of your focusing skills and have calculated the depth of field.
You may worry about introducing noise with a high ISO, but don’t worry too much: it’s better to have a focused image with a bit of noise than a soft image due to motion blur
4. Be familiar with the visual field distance of the 50mm lens
Photography is an art, add and subtract reduction in the viewfinder, scope of the lens at what distance to box which, to this, so that when we meet with good shots, we can with the fastest speed, the most accurate location distance from the frame to frame scenery best to points, so you can improve your use of the lens the piece rate.
5. Use manual focus
When using a low aperture (portrait/macro photography), make sure the camera is properly focused, rather than letting it automatically select the focus. Follow these steps to change the focus mode:
Step away from full auto and switch to AV, TV, M, or P on your camera. Then press the AF select key; The automatic focus selection screen should appear; Finally, select the focal point manually. Now, only one focus will be highlighted, which means it is selected;
You can now switch to any of the nine focal points available; Use dials or cross keys for quick switching. As a result, you can accurately focus the camera, resulting in sharper images.
6. Control depth of field
Many people buy standard 50mm lenses for the cheapest wide aperture. The best aperture of a traditional 50mm lens is usually F8 or F11, and the image quality can be greatly improved if the full aperture is reduced by one or two gears. In addition, the blur is not the more virtual the better, as far as the portrait is concerned, the blur outside the focus looks fresh at first, but on some occasions is more suitable for shooting a large depth of field environment portrait, and sometimes close to the subject, even F8 brings the blur is completely enough. Therefore, try other aperture gears than the wide aperture and try to control the depth of field according to the genre. This will solve the so-called “wide aperture syndrome”.
Once you know how to use a 50mm lens, you’ll need to practice to see how the optics behave under different shooting conditions. As a result, you can develop “muscle memory” to go along with your intuition when analyzing scenes and visualizing compositions without having to look through the viewfinder all the time. Finally, I hope you can take amazing photos soon.