My Favorite Lens

   Some time last fall, a photographer friend of mine was telling me about how he started using this lens. He had been having it for a long time and never used it. It's the same lens I've seen many photographers use: The 50mm prime. He told me how wonderful the lens was, and how he was learning so much by using it. Strangely enough, these were the same things many other photographers were saying. Personally, I thought they were crazy. Who could possibly enjoy using a lens that didn't zoom? I told myself there was no way I would ever use a lens that didn't zoom. Ever.

   Previous to this, I had asked another photographer friend about different lenses and which ones he liked. He said he had a lens he wasn't using at the time and that I could use it if I wanted. It was the 50mm prime. I tried it a few times, but always went back to my old lens. It zoomed and I liked it. So I put the 50mm in my camera bag and kept it there quite a while.

   Then one day, for some strange reason I decided to try it again. I don't remember what it was I photographed, but I remember thinking that couldn't possibly have been the same lens I had tried before. This lens took good pictures! I started using it more and more, and the more I used it, the more I loved the pictures I was getting. Not that all my pictures were great. They most definitely were not. But they were getting better.

   After Christmas last year, I was able to get my own. I got on Amazon.com and ordered a Canon EF 50mm 1.4. Today may be the first time it has come off my camera since. Next to my camera, this is my favorite purchase technology wise.

  

   Now I'm one of those crazy people who uses a lens that doesn't zoom and loves every minute of it.