Normal

Every photographer must own a Standard lens.

On most Canons and Nikons, this means a 35mm lens. On Full frame cameras like Film Cameras or the 5D Mark II or the 1Ds Mark III or the Nikon D3 or D700 this means a 50mm lens.

Reasons for this?

1) A Standard or Normal lens is equivalent to the way our eye sees things. We don't have any distortion like a wide angle (this can be simulated by coming up to a subject really, really close) or the flattening of a subject like a telephoto lens (this too can be simultated by closing one eye). This is the truest WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzy wig): what you see is what you get.

2) It forces you to expand your creativity. With a Standard Prime (meaning non-zoom) lens, you really have to stop and think about your composition. A good exercise is a 50mm walk-around. Put a Standard lens on your camera and walk around for the day, and use only that lens to shoot for the whold day. Landscapes, portraits, action, etc. all without specialty lenses. It'll make you think on your feet.

3) It's probably the fastes lens in your kit. Unless you're a Professional or have really deep pockets, the 50mm will probably have a low aperture of f1.4 (or f1.8 if you're a starving dental or medical student), which means you can open up the lens to f1.4, let more light in, and then choose a really fast shutter speed. That's what we mean by a fast lens (not how many frames-per-second we can shoot, which is a function of the camera body, not the lens).

4) It's produces reasonably flat images for good environmental portraits, which allows you to get IN (really IN) to the shot without the distortion of a wide angle lens.

5) It's a low profile (compact). It's small enough that it doesn't really draw attention to itself. You can slide it in anywhere.

6) It's light. Have you ever walked around with a 70-200mm f2.8 ? Thick as a brick and heavy too. A standard lens, which for most of you Canon shooters is the 35mm f2.0 is compact, fast, and it looks quite cool.

7) It's relatively inexpensive. For only $350 on Amazon you can have all of the above. And this particular lens has quite good IQ (that's Image Quality, who wouldn't want that!)

Incidentally, I just got mine repaired and it arrived at work today (don't worry I'm really seeing patients and blogging in between) and here it is with one of my colleague's toys, Ernie, looking through the lens. I'm excited to have my normal, compact, light, inexpensive, and very fast lens back!

Sent from my Blackberry.