Why 28mm May Be The Only Prime Lens You Need

[Music] hey everybody welcome back i love prime lenses i'll have to admit it they tend to be sharper than zooms in general they tend to have wider apertures which allows you to let in a lot more light and really isolate your subject with a shallow depth of field the problem is is that if you want to go traveling if you want to go hiking you want to explore an area you need to sort of bring a few different prime lenses to cover the different sorts of shooting situations you'll find yourself in you may want a wide angle lens to shoot landscapes a medium telephoto to shoot portraits and things like that and that's great but what if you just want to travel light what if you just want to carry one lens and this is something that i'm constantly struggling with if i just want to have one camera and one lens in my bag what would it be what is my desert island lens what is my desert island focal length a lot of people end up uh picking 35 millimeters which is great but it's never really gelled with me i always found 35 millimeters to be just a little bit too narrow a little bit too long of a lens for the types of photography that i like to do i think it's a little long for a lot of landscapes i think it's a little long for shooting indoors you know in cram situations where you really can't back up to get more into the frame and uh and that's kind of a problem on the other end of a spectrum is the 24 millimeter lens and that's a great focal length as well it's a lot wider you can get a lot more in the frame it's easier to shoot photos indoors the problem is is that you tend to start getting more wide angle distortion when you go as wide as 24 millimeters particularly when you're photographing people so after a while when i got back into film and i have other videos about this i discover the 28 millimeter focal length which is not all that common in prime lenses these days uh generally you either have like a 24 or a 35 or a 50. those are a lot more common nowadays in this video i'm going to tell you why a 28 millimeter lens is my desert island lens it's the it's the lens i would have welded to my camera if i could and it's usable in so many different circumstances i'm gonna tell you the reasons why and why i think you should consider it let's take a look travel photography is what drove me to this focal length in the first place when you're inside and you don't have room to back up any further or if you want to capture the scope of a scene without chopping off the top or bottom unlike a 24 millimeter and wider lens you don't exaggerate the distances between things or make impressive sights any smaller in the frame than they are in reality there's no disconnect between what you see with your eyes and what you can capture through the viewfinder typically for landscapes i used to reach for my ultra wide lens i still do much of the time but when i don't want to make the distant mountain peak look smaller or focus too much on the foreground if there isn't much interest there 28 millimeters is great while still being wide enough to incorporate a foreground this focal length is great when tightening up the composition and emphasizing the shape and form in a landscape this was a huge surprise to me i didn't imagine i'd like shooting portraits as much as i do with 28 millimeters you can get close to your subject and still keep them rooted in their surroundings with a wide aperture you can still have a sense of three-dimensionality without completely obliterating the background this is a lens best used when you want to remember the context of a moment a sense of place along with the person at the center of it and unlike a wider lens you don't get unflattering wide angle distortion [Music] while i don't claim to be much of a street photographer the times i've used the 28 millimeter lens to capture protests and local oddities when wandering around i've been grateful to have it at my side you do have to get quite close to your subject if you want a tight crop but again i usually choose to take a wider shot to get more context [Music] this sort of goes hand in hand with travel but i love 28 millimeters for taking photos of my food and close-ups of little details i want to capture you can capture your whole plate without standing up or taking a step back these lenses tend to focus pretty close too so they're a great choice for product and still life photography as well so those are a few reasons why i think a 28 millimeter lens is the ideal prime lens particularly if you're looking to have just the one lens to take with you everywhere it's great for travel and portraiture and landscapes i just after a while using the 28 millimeter lens on my nikon f3 i kind of discovered that i saw the world at 28 millimeters now you may not be particularly familiar with this focal length but i really suggest you give it a try whether it be a 28 millimeter equivalent on a on a crop sensor body like which would be an 18 millimeter 18 millimeters kind of translates to 28 27 28 millimeters i just picked up the fuji 18 millimeter f 1.4 and i am in love with it and there's going to be a review on that one in a little bit that equivalent focal length really is my desert island lens so hopefully this has been helpful to you in some way be sure to like this video subscribe to my channel for more content like this leave a comment in the comments down below let me know what's your favorite focal length is there something that really stands out to you if you haven't discovered a focal length that really speaks to you you use a lot of zoom lenses take a look at the metadata in your photos and see what focal length you tend to zoom to in most of your images you'll be surprised at what you'll find thank you again for joining me and i hope to see you next time you

Channel: Matthew Arrington

Views: 228,415

Keywords: prime lens, Nikon f3, 28mm lens, lens review, focal length, fuji, 18mm

Id: pJJXbS1rXxc

Length: 6min 54sec (414 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 28 2021