The Need for Speed: Create Magic Easily with These Fast Prime Lenses

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We’re always looking for lenses that can perform magic. If you want to shoot in extremely low light situations or completely obliterate the background in your images, you need a lens (or two) that can do these with ease. This is where fast primes come in to play. Prime lenses can be magnitudes faster (when it comes to their aperture) compared to zoom lenses thanks to their simplistic designs. This is one reason why fast primes are adored by photographers everywhere. Fast primes, of course, come in a variety of flavors. We covered some very affordable fast primes in this roundup here. Now, we’re going to take a look at some lenses that redefine what fast is. If you need a ridiculously sharp lens, one that will let you see in the dark, or that will give you simply magical bokeh, read on.

Tamron SP 35mm f1.4 Di USD

In our review, we said:

“It boasts gorgeous image quality, creamy bokeh, loads of sharpness, and low enough distortion to be a great choice for portraiture.”

Chris Gampat – Editor In Chief

Buy now Canon EF: $699

Buy now Nikon F: $699

Fujifilm 50mm f1 R WR

In our review, we said:

“Wide-open at f1, you’re going to get some of the best bokeh you’ll ever see on the APS-C platform. It’s a must-have for portrait photographers.”

Brett Day – Gear Editor

Buy now: $1,499.95

Canon RF 50mm f1.2 L USM

In our review, we said:

“This lens exhibits beautiful bokeh, sharp images, micro-contrast, a medium format look, weather sealing, fast focusing, etc. In many ways, this is perhaps Canon’s most perfect prime lens within a standard workable focal length that they’ve put out in years.”

Chris Gampat – Editor In Chief

Buy now: $2,299

These fast prime lenses are flawless. However, if you want to get the most out of them across a wide range of genres, you may want to brush up on your photography skills. We highly recommend these awesome guides. Want to be a better street photographer? There’s a guide for that. Do you want to improve your landscapes? Guess what? There’s a guide for that too. Hit the link above and broaden your skill sets.

Rokinon 85mm f1.4 AF FE

In our review, we said:

“The Rokinon 85mm f1.4 AF FE really excels in terms of image quality. Where Sony has very saturated looks to their lenses, the Rokinon 85mm f1.4 AF FE somehow or another is muted but still gorgeous. It’s an odd one for Rokinon to me; their lenses have always provided what I’d describe as crunchy and saturated images. But this time around, the images are nice and muted. Combine this with the versatility of the Sony RAW files and you’ve got yourself a winner.”

Chris Gampat – Editor In Chief

Buy now Sony E: $549

Olympus 45mm f1.2 PRO

In our review, we said:

“the image quality is outstanding, the performance is what you would expect from a professional lens of this price point and the images that you can create with it will be gorgeous”

Buy now: $1,149