Any serious photographer should have a 50mm lens in their kit bag. Also known as a 'standard' prime or a 'nifty fifty,' these lenses capture a perspective that's roughly equivalent to the field of view of the human eye (when mounted on a full-frame camera). This makes them ideal for creating natural-feeling images, and means they can be useful in just about any genre of photography. And on a crop-sensor APS-C or Micro Four Thirds camera, the longer 'effective' focal length makes them ideal for portraiture.
50mm lenses run the gamut in terms of price – it's possible to spend a four-figure sum on professional 50mm lenses, but there are also some ultra-budget optics out there that offer surprisingly good quality for a minimal outlay.
I've put together this guide of 50mm lenses, focusing on the best buys for all the major mounts. I've also added some advice on how to choose a good 50mm lens at the bottom of this guide. For a longer perspective, you may also want to check out my guide to the best telephoto lenses.
Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer – and as such has personally tested the lenses in this guide.
The best 50mm lenses
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Best Canon
Sure, it's too big for the cameras it's made for. Sure, it costs about the same as a new EOS R camera. All these are valid points. But... well, if you use the RF 50mm f/1.2L USM, you'll understand. It is quite simply a beautiful lens that radically redefines what the L series is capable of.
Real-world results are near-flawless, with exceptional sharpness even wide open at f/1.2, and a really natural roll-off between focused and defocused areas, along with beautifully smooth bokeh.
A customizable control ring enbles you to really make the lens your own and have it handle exactly the way you want it to. There's weather-sealing too, and a super-speedy autofocus system: in short, everything you could want from a lens of this type. It's an incredible feat of engineering by Canon.
See our full Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L review
Budget Canon
While the RF 50mm f/1.2L USM is a stunning lens, its price means it's out of reach for many EOS R series users. That's where the RF 50mm f/1.8 STM comes in.
As far as I'm concerned, this relatively inexpensive, compact and capable standard prime lens is the best-value buy in Canon's entire RF lens catalog. The great news too is that image quality hasn't been compromised – my tests show that it's on par with the much pricier f/1.2 variant, in one or two areas at least, with impressive sharpness.
The build quality is a little better than in the EF equivalent, although it's worth bearing in mind that neither is weather-sealed. Focusing is also very good, with the stepping motor (STM) offering quick and quiet focus, which is fast enough for stills and smooth enough for video. The Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM is a fantastic everyday lens that pairs well with any RF body.
See our full Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM review
Best Nikon
The fastest 50mm-ish Z-mount lens that Nikon makes is the Nikkor 58mm f/0.95 Noct, but it's crazy expensive and somewhat inpractical. When compared to the Noct, this 50mm f/1.2 S looks much better value, even it's still a very pricey lens.
There's no getting around the fact that at 150mm long and over 1kg in weight, this is a hefty 50mm prime. The 17-element pro lens incorporates advanced coatings like anti-reflection ARNEO and Nano Crystal Coat, along with a 9-blade rounded diaphragm.
The exterior is fully weather sealed and features a video-friendly silent control ring, along with a customizable Fn button and OLED info panel that displays important data. All in all, handling is top-end and the same goes for image quality and every other aspect of performance. It's a cracker.
Read our full Nikon Z 50mm f/1.2 S review
Budget Nikon
I raised an eyebrow when Nikon launched the Z 50mm f/1.8 S as one of the first ever Z-system lenses, giving up-market S-line credentials to a prime that ‘only’ had an f/1.8 aperture rating. As soon as I tried it, I was won over by its quality and all-around performance, but still hankered over that faster f/1.4 aperture.
This lens hits the f/1.4 mark, while also adding a secondary customizable control ring. I find that’s most useful for stepless aperture control when shooting video, which this lens does superbly well.
Although aimed at ‘content creators’, the lens is equally adept at stills as well as video. It doesn’t have an auto/manual focus mode switch, but I’m not really bothered. Edge/corner sharpness isn’t the best, but I’ve found that the lens can do full justice to the resolving power of Z6 -series cameras, and the relatively compact, lightweight build makes it a good fit.
Read more: Nikon Z 50mm f/1.4 review
Best Sony
The Sony FE 50mm f/1.2 G Master is a spectacular nifty-fifty, boasting impressive sharpness right the way through its aperture range – yes, even at f/1.2. Sony has built this lens from the ground up with sharpness in mind, and its optical path includes three XA (extreme aspherical) elements that have been engineered to a surface-precision tolerance of 0.01 microns.
What this means, as we found in our review, is that the lens performance is absolutely stellar – blowing away its rivals from the likes of Canon and Nikon. Our lab tests reported basically nothing in terms of imperfections, except for some pincushion distortion, and a little vignetting at f/1.2
The handling, too, is excellent. It's a heavy lens, as it needs to be with specs like these, but not exceptionally so in the pantheon of 50mm f/1.2 lenses. This is an all-around fantastic optic, and if its asking price isn't too dear for you, it'll deliver nothing short of spectacular performance.
Read our full Sony FE 50mm f/1.2 G Master full review
Budget Sony
Unlike many high-profile 50mm lenses with very fast max apertures, the FE 50mm f/2.5 is extremely small, extremely light and extremely practical. It can go places where you just wouldn’t take a bigger lens: with a lens this size you can shoot all day without getting arm-ache.
The lens's maximum aperture of f/2.5 might sound very tame by today’s standards, but it’s still faster than even a pro zoom lens (just), while being a fraction of the size and cost.
Performance-wise, this lens is just terrific. Sharpness is sensational, especially between f/2.8 and f/5.6, and chromatic aberration is almost invisible. The dual linear AF motors do their work silently, smoothly and quickly, and though there no stabilization, all current Sony A7 and A9 cameras have in-body stabilization anyway.
See our full Sony FE 50mm f/2.5 G review
Best independent
This Viltrox lens is designed and built as a pro-grade lens, catering to the most demanding professional and enthusiast photographers. It’s something of a feast in handling terms, with a dedicated aperture control ring plus a click/de-click switch, customizable function button and more besides. Build quality is pretty epic as well, with a really solid feel to the weather-sealed construction. And of course, it has that desirably fast f/1.4 aperture rating.
Quality glass features 15 elements in 11 groups, including a UA (Ultra Aspherical) element with a relatively large diameter and ultra-high precision build, three ED (Extra-low dispersion) elements and no less than eight HR (High Refractive index) elements. The aperture is based on an 11-blade diaphragm, which remains particularly well-rounded when stopping down.
Autofocus is based on a HyperVCM (Voice Coil Motor) autofocus system, designed to be quick for stills, while also delivering ultra-smooth focus transitions when shooting video, in virtually complete silence. Image quality is fabulous, combining excellent sharpness and clarity, even when shooting wide-open, with beautifully soft and dreamy bokeh. It’s a cracker of a lens and an absolute bargain at the price.
Read our full Viltrox AF 50mm f/1.4 Pro review
Best L-mount
Sigma has pumped out a fair few 50mm lenses for L-mount – which makes sense, given that the manufacturer was one of the originators of the L-mount alliance, along with Leica and Panasonic. As usual, Sigma also offers a Sony E (FE) mount version of the lens.
This 50mm F1.2 DG DN | Art lens is one of my personal favorites. It joins the elite class of f/1.2 primes, delivering a tight depth of field and beautiful bokeh. What's more, Sigma has achieved this with no noticeable compromise in terms of sharpness and clarity.
The only real catch is that it's a pricey lens to buy, which again is only to be expected. If your budget won't stretch to it, take a look at the Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG DN Art or the natty little Sigma 50mm F2 DG DN | C, both of which earned high marks in our reviews. Again, these two are also available in E-mount for Sony mirrorless cameras.
Read our full Sigma 50mm F1.2 DG DN Art review
Best Leica
All right, I'll wait until you're finished fainting at the price tag. All done? Right – while I'm going to admit that this expensive lens is not for everyone, I have to also be fair and say that it is one of the sharpest lenses I've ever tested – ever.
The Leica Summilux-SL 50mm f/1.4 ASPH is ludicrously well constructed, inside and out, and the reason it weighs more than a kilogram is because it's packed with some of the finest glass in optical engineering.
If you need the best of the best to pair with your Leica L-mount camera, this is the buy to make – it's absurdly sharp even with the aperture wide open or stopped fully down, and in the mid-range it's simply scintillating. What a lens.
See our full Leica Summilux-SL 50mm f/1.4 ASPH review
Lab data and comparisons
The graphs below show the comparative performance of the lenses in this guide, based on our in-house lab tests. Perhaps usurprisingly, some of the priciest lenses are also the sharpest, including the Sony FE 50mm f/1.2, Sigma 50mm f/1.2 and Nikon Z 50mm f/1.2.
As I'd expect for modern, high-quality prime lenses with a standard focal length, distortion is minimal across the board and they all do well to minimize color fringing.
For more detailed graphs of each lens's performance, take a look at the graphs published in our full standalone reviews.
How to choose the best 50mm lens
A good 50mm lens should produce undistorted, naturalistic-looking images. There is plenty of variance among 50mm lenses in terms of their size, weight, price and maximum aperture. Generally, a larger and more expensive lens will have the advantage of a larger maximum aperture (f/1.4 or f/1.2), meaning you can open up the lens wider to let in more light. Not only is this useful in dark situations, but it also allows the lens to create images with a shallower depth of field, producing that clean separation between subject and background that is so sought-after by portrait photographers.
Equivalent focal lengths
One thing that's worth being aware of is that a 50mm lens does not always produce the field of view of a 50mm lens, depending on the sensor size of the camera you're using. On an APS-C body, such as a Fujifilm X camera, the same lens will have an effective focal length of 75mm (80mm for Canon), making it a better fit for portraiture.
Shrink down to a Micro Four Thirds camera, and a 50mm lens will have a 100mm effective focal length, more suitable for really tight portraits and short telephoto shooting.
Whichever camp you’re in, a ‘nifty fifty’ might well be the only prime lens you ever buy, so it pays to get a good one.
How we test lenses
We test lenses using both real world sample images and lab tests. Our lab tests are carried out scientifically in controlled conditions using the Imatest testing suite, which consists of custom charts and analysis software that measures resolution in line widths/picture height, a measurement widely used in lens and camera testing. We find the combination of lab and real-word testing works best, as each reveals different qualities and characteristics. See more on how we test and review at Digital Camera World.
