Amateurs, casual shooters, and pros alike agree that prime lenses are wonderful. The practical use of prime lenses makes them some of the best optical glass you can get, for a reasonable amount of money. Prime lenses do not zoom, and usually have a simple design. The various performance specs depend on the cost of the lenses - primes can be found at several different price points. Paid professionals typically carry primes in their bags, but whether or not they use them depends on what they are shooting. I'll review what makes prime lenses useful and also suggest some primes that I love.
Prime lenses are very sharp due to a less complicated build and the amount of moving parts compared to zoom lenses, which can lose sharpness due to their mechanical complexity. Sharpness (avoiding blurry photos) is a characteristic that all professionals are concerned with. The sharpness is marginal, but if you are into the sharpest results then primes are the lenses for you.
The weight of a lens is another feature that many professionals pay close attention to, and carrying a prime lens is a fantastic lightweight option. Carrying heavy gear during an event can strain your body. Most professional lenses are made from the same metal alloy as high-end bodies. Combining pro-grade bodies and lenses makes for a very heavy system. Using prime lenses on a pro camera body will help reduce the total weight of your camera system. These lightweight lenses offer the portability and comfort needed for a long day of shooting.
In addition to sharpness and portability, prime lenses offer the benefit of affordability as well. Ordinarily cheaper than zooms, each focal length is priced differently, depending your needs. Primes are priced for both the consumer and the working professional. While a f/1.8 lens in a particular focal length may be more expensive than another, every prime lens offers better performance and picture quality overall than their zoom counterparts.
The impressive capabilities of prime lenses are the primary reason why professionals purchase these types of lenses. Wider f/stops will provide shallow depth of field that gives us the desirable bokeh effect. Most primes are also faster than zooms, with some exceptions. Sigma has introduced an f/1.8 zoom lens for crop sensor cameras. Many portrait and street photographers use primes like this one to isolate their subject from its background – something that isn't as easily done with a zoom lens.
Another reason to use primes is to improve your skills as a photographer. Using a single focal length will force you to think more about framing and composition. As each shot becomes more thoughtful, you'll notice the effects of zooming with your feet instead of your hands. While lens zooming is easier and more convenient, sometimes it causes us not to think before we shoot. Some of the best photos I've ever taken were shot with a prime lens.
Prime lenses are available in a wide variety of focal lengths and come with an array of features. I currently use a 28mm f/1.8, a 50mm f/1.4, and an 85mm f/1.4. Just like features on a camera body, prime lenses have a variety of features, depending on the price point. While all of these lenses are very fast and deliver quality photos, every manufacturer makes a variant of each focal length and charges a premium for better coatings, optical design, and build quality.
Although crop sensor lenses are incompatible with full-frame bodies, you can put a full-frame lens on a crop sensor body. Using full-frame lenses on crop sensor bodies can provide much sharper results. This can provide optics that are sharper in the center versus around the outer edge of the lens. Using a lens that was designed for full-frame will give you the sharpest images possible. Another advantage of doing this is the gain of increased focal length. For example, using a 50mm prime on a crop sensor body will turn the 50mm into a perceived 75mm prime (which is close to portraiture focal lengths). Using a full-frame lens on a crop sensor body can actually save you money since it will allow you to purchase a lighter lens versus a larger lens with a longer focal length. Many landscape or wildlife photographers are fans of this type of setup because it keeps their gear on the lighter side and gives them the opportunity to shoot continuously throughout the day.
Budget-conscious folks will fall in love with some of the prime lenses that are on the market today, as they are quite affordable. The 50mm f/1.8 lens made by Nikon or Canon is one of the cheapest full-frame prime lenses you can purchase for your camera. This lens is nicknamed "The Nifty Fifty." The 50mm focal length is considered a "normal lens," as it renders very closely to the way you view the world with your own eyes. It's a very sharp lens, which produces a formidable bokeh. While The Nifty Fifty is designed for full-frame, it does work on the crop sensor bodies with a crop factor. Many companies offer different lenses for their unique sensor bodies as well. There are crop sensor lenses and full-frame lenses. Nikon and Canon make similar lenses throughout the range of focal lengths and apertures.
The Nifty Fifty is one of the most highly recommended professional primes. Nikon and Canon both make different variations of a 50mm prime lens. Many companies have f/1.8, f/1.4 and even f/1.2 versions of the 50mm lens. Canon's f/1.8 version is not as desirable due its compromised build quality, plastic mount, and poorly focusing motor system. On the other hand, Nikon uses a metal mount on their f/1.8 and it seems to have a better overall build quality. The Nikon also features full weather sealing and dust protection for the camera body, which are all things to think about when purchasing prime lenses. With any lens, the wider you go the softer and less sharp the lens becomes while wide open. Canon makes a 50mm f/1.2 lens that gives a lot of pleasant background blur. Many photographers will purchase these ultra-wide aperture lenses for the ability to stop them down for sharper results at lower f-stops. Understanding how the relationship between aperture and optics affects your end results will help you capture super-sharp photos.
If you shoot professionally (or just happen to have unlimited funds), be sure to get the widest aperture lens available for that focal length. Canon and Nikon both make a 50mm f/1.2 lens; however, only Canon currently uses an auto-focus motor at that aperture. Nikon also makes a few lenses that require an auto-focus motor within the camera body. Many older Nikon primes are just as good as new lenses but may not have auto-focusing built into the lens itself. For example, Nikon's 50mm f/1.2 AI is a totally manual lens with auto-indexing. The standard auto-indexing adds a meter-coupling ridge to the aperture ring, which encodes the current aperture setting relative to the maximum, and a lens speed indexing post on the mounting flange, which translates the maximum aperture itself. Both the ridge and post couple to the camera's light meter. All Nikon lenses that are designated with AI-S, Series E, and AF all include these auto-indexing features. All professional bodies from Nikon link to the meter coupling ridge, but the lens speed indexing post is ignored and the maximum aperture value are set internally by the camera body.
The 85mm focal length is a very popular one for portrait photographers because it lends itself to images that have few distortion issues. Nikon makes an amazingly sharp 85mm f/1.4G, and Canon produces an astonishing f/1.2 for the 85mm focal length. What makes Canon's 85mm f/1.2 lens possible is the flange mount they now use since changing parts in 1987. Canon's EF mount is 54mm in diameter, while Nikon decided to stick with their F mount at only 44mm in diameter. Canon's 85mm f/1.2 lens is quite large and expensive, costing $1,999 as of 2015. Photographers are willing to pay a pretty penny for large apertures because these lenses are ultimately sharper when stopped down to f/1.8 or f/2.0. While there are a few sufficient and even impressive variable aperture lenses on the market, many are made from lower-quality materials and optics as well.
If you are interested in macro photography, Nikon's 60mm or 105mm and the Canon 50mm or 100mm macro lenses may interest you. These lenses can capture detailed images at a 1:1 reproduction ratio. The longer focal length means that you won't have to get as close to your subject as you would if using a wider focal length. Keep in mind that just because a lens says it's a macro lens, doesn't mean it's a true 1:1 macro lens. Some of the lenses that have a macro designation just let the user know that they can focus closer than with other types of lenses within that range. True 1:1 macro lenses are usually prime focal lengths.
While I have only discussed a few types of prime lenses, there are plenty of types of primes that will fit everyone's needs. I can assure you that you won't be disappointed with any prime lens you purchase. They consistently deliver quality images with a lightweight design. Both professionals and consumers alike love using prime lenses. This is why primes are the photographer's best friend.
