If you've purchased your first dSLR and it has come with a lens, there's a good chance that you will stick with using this lens for a while and watch your skill level progress until you feel the need to get another lens to further your skills, after all, that's partly why you've bought a digital SLR camera, so that you could change lenses to suit your situation right?

I look after a photography forum and on that forum one of the most asked questions I see is "what lens should I buy next" and there are many many answers to this one question. For example, you've purchased your new Canon 7D and you've spent the extra money and picked up the Canon EF 24-105mm L series lens along with it, a great lens, versatile and robust! And sure, it's going to be flexible enough for a lot of your regular walking around, long enough to pick out detail and wide enough for a nice landscape shot. But one thing that I find having a lens with a decent long and wide end is that you find yourself getting lazy! You don't move around to compose your shot, you stand in the one spot and wander back and forth using the zoom ring - I know, I used to do it a lot.

Taken with a Canon EF 50mm f1.4 (At f1.4)

When I'm asked personally "what lens should I get next" I almost always say, to beginners, that the next (if not the first) lens that they should invest in is a good, sturdy fifty mm! Both Canon and Nikon and pretty much everyone else make a "fifty" and there are multiple types within most brands. Let's take Canon for example (I use Canon, but you can use whatever you like) they have three 50mm lenses within the EF range of their lenses, the starting point is the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Mk II an entry level lens that is appropriately priced at ?0 it has a plastic mount and isn't quite as solid as the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM which has a metal mount and is a bit more solid. I have had this particular lens for a few years now and would have to say that it's still my favourite! Then, if you have the cash and you're after the ultimate (in my opinion) in "fifty land" you can buy yourself a nice Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM! That's right ONE POINT TWO.. You get amazing build quality and a picture quality that's so sharp you could slice diamonds with it. You can see the nice sharpness in my friend Stephanie's eyes below.This was a quick snap with the Canon EF 50mm f1.4.

So, you're saying, "Why a fifty" why indeed, let me tell you what I think based on being asked, "what lens should I buy" for many years... I think that you should buy a fifty for multiple reasons

• You actually have to work to compose your shots.


• Your zoom becomes your legs and your arms.


• You start to think about your photos and how you are composing them just that little bit more.


• With the thinking about your composition and framing comes more thought about your lighting and subject matter.

This is my theory, but a theory based on being asked many times, though whilst I totally love and recommend a 50mm lens, there are things you have to watch out for! The image in this post of the "Man from Cuba" You will notice that very little of his face is actually in focus - this is called "Wide Open Syndrome" I had it for ages when I first purchased my fifty - I went around shooting everything with my lens "wide open" or very close to it, and as a result my depth of field was very shallow. You can see the same in the photograph of the mixing desk up the top.

Other benefits of having a "prime" lens are that you can often end up with less distracting glare in your images, sometimes the more elements in a lens can bounce your light around just that little bit more, thus creating "lens flare".

Something I would like to propose to you, dear reader, is a challenge!

• What I would like to see is a selection of five of your photos over a week whereby you only use ONE focal length - Obviously I would prefer it to be "Fifty" but if you don't have a 50mm lens, you can choose a focal length that works for you and your camera.

• When you've taken those images, I want you to post them in your DigitalRev gallery and place a link down below this post; I will feature my favourite image in my next post, here on DigitalRev.com

I was just looking in my Lightroom library to see how many images I've taken with my "fifty" in the last 12 months or so - 11,306! You should get hold of a fifty and try it out as soon as you can!