50mm for Haridwar

Going to Haridwar and Rishikesh (rafting and all).. ill be carrying my kit lens (18-55) with my dslr. i was wondering if i should carry the 50mm f1.8.. will there be opportunities for this lens or the 18-55 is good enough ? please suggest

Carrying 50mm f1.8 could be a good idea provided you have space to keep..., IMHO, if you would be interested in taking late evening photographs, especially of Ganga Aarti.

Take both together, it's not so heavy or big lens. At night the 50mm will be great help. It's better than feeling I could have brought the other lens too. Happy clicking

Wide open aperture means a very shallow DOF (which means a lot of the shot is out of focus), so am i actually gonna get good shots with the 50mm with wide open aperture ?

When you don't want shallow depth of field then stop it down.

if i do that.. Then theres no point carrying the 50mm... As the 18-55 will do the job... Hmm..

If not, then there wouldn't have been any prime lens in market.

Others have already pointed out the advantages of 50mm lens over the 18-55mm. If you are using a fast lens for low light photography, then you have to be content with shallow depth of field.

And even you stop down 50 mm prime to say f/5.6, still then the result will be better than your 18-55mm lens. Because a kit zoom lens cannot beat a prime lens in terms of picture quality.

OP has DSLR camera with him. He could very well experiment with the low light and spell the experiences and results in stead of asking here!

At least I would have done so!

What brand is that? If it's nikon, you may want to see this thread: http://www.kenrockwell.com/trips/201...oast/index.htm for some comparison with another lens. This was shot with a D3 ofcourse ... excellent portrait lens.

Take the 50. It weighs as much as a t-shirt, takes up as much space. I always take my fast-50; I don't need it often, but when I do, nothing else will do.

As for "most of the photo" being out of focus . . . That's up to you, and how you frame things (and used thoughtfully, it helps isolate your subject from everything else) That 's kinda the creative part of photography

Both pics taken Hand held @ f5.6 1/40 iso3200 Nikon D3100

with 18-55mm


DSC_1879 by doomslyr, on Flickr

with 50mm


DSC_1884 by doomslyr, on Flickr

See the difference and you would find 50 mm has better result! It is offering more details!!

What about VR.. the 18-55 has VR which is helpful in low light shots.. i wont be having my tripod with me

If you are taking just one lens, take the 18-55. The fixed lens will (obviously) give you better results, but for sheer flexibility, take the 18-55.

Agree with DrRudi