Shooting at a 50mm focal length using a crop sensor camera

If you use a Canon dslr camera with a crop sensor a 50mm prime lens is not going to behave like a 50mm lens. The problem with a crop sensor camera is the crop effect, which effectively changes the field of view, and hence the effective focal length of the lens.

A 50mm lens on a crop sensor camera has the same field of view as an 80mm lens (i.e. 50mm x 1.6) on a full frame camera. This means a 50mm prime lens on a crop sensor camera doesn’t shoot as wide as a 50mm on a full frame camera, which in turn means you won’t get as much in the frame.

Getting a 50mm field of view on a crop sensor camera is not possible with a prime lens, however you can get close. A 35mm prime lens gives the same field of view, i.e. has the same effective focal length, as a 56mm lens. This still isn’t as wide as a true 50mm lens, but it is pretty close.  Another lens you may wish to consider is a 28mm prime lens. This has an effective focal length of 44.8m, which is slighter wider than a 50mm lens.
​
With two lenses to choose from the big question has to be “which one is best?” The answer to this depends on how much you want to get in the frame. If you want a wider field of view the 28mm lens is the most suitable, and if you want a bit more reach the 35mm lens is the most suitable. It is worth noting at this point that there is a greater choice of 35mm prime lenses than there are 28mm prime lenses.

The same applies to Nikon, Sony, Olympus and any other camera with a crop sensor, so you have to take the crop factor in to account.