DX Prime - 50mm or 35mm?

[mambo]

Hi Guys,

In a bid to improve my creativity with my photography I am looking to invest in a prime lens.

I have been looking at the Nikon 1.8 50mm but I have a D60 body so no autofocus and the focal length is increased. Has anyone else found this an issue? On the other hand the Nikon 35mm has autofocus, but is twice the price so I will be really stretching my budget.

I am not worried too much about the focus as I have other manual lenses, I just have concerns of how far I will need to be from the subject.

I suppose im asking is it really worth stretching my budget for the 35mm? I'm hoping to mainly use it for portrait and still life, but it would be good to have a versitile lens.



Thanks in advance!

[RichardTaylor]

I am a Canon shooter. If I was looking at portrait & still life I would go for a 50mm lens.
You may find the perspective when using a 35mm lens a little off putting especially if not shooting environmental portraits..

[OsmosisStudios]

I've almost always found 35mm to be too wide for portraits on DX. The distortion you get from it is no cake-walk either.

[mambo]

Thanks for the input guys

I'm off to buy the 50mm intime for my trip to france

[scootermcq]

I am of a different mind....

I found the 50mm to be too long for some applications on the crop sensor. I picked up a 35mm for those closer portraits.

I would suggest looking at the exif data on your current images and see where you were zoomed into most of the time. If it is 50mm usually, then perfect, if it is closer, then the 50 will be too long.

This thread has an example of a portrait with a 35mm

Messing with new 35mm f1.8

[Glenn72]

My Nikon friend just bought the 35mm F2 a few months ago and he really loves it for his Nikon D40x.
If you plan to do a lot of street photography get the 35mm F2, if you plan to do a lot of portraits get the 50mm 1.8.

[dcclark]

Personally, I love my 35mm f/1.8 AF-S on my D-40. I find that it's a good length for indoor portrait work, but to each his own. The best bet is to find one at a store, or borrow one, and go around trying it. See how it feels to YOU.

That said, the distortion IS a bit much, but it's correctible and shouldn't be too big of a problem for portraits.