Lenses I Live By: 50mm

The basic building block of any lens kit is, or at least used to be, the fast normal prime. In full frame terms, that's generally a 50mm lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.8 or faster. I have something like this for just about every system I use.

Nikon's excellent little 35mm f/1.8G is a great crop sensor prime, letting you isolate the subject and blue the background nicely.

Fuji makes a few 35mm XF primes of varying prices and maximum apertures, but on my Fuji cameras I like the 32mm f/1.8 Zeiss Touit. If you really feel the need for speed on a budget, Sigma offers their 30mm f/1.4 Contemporary prime for the X-mount, too.

The Zeiss makes me happy...

Still, given the versatility of modern zoom lenses, I usually only break out the 50mm equivalent when I need the really fast aperture. They do see more use than my 35mm wide-ish angle primes, though.

It comes in handy with cameras that aren't great in low light, like the small-sensor Pentax Q series, which has an 8.5mm f/1.9 prime that's a 50mm equivalent.