In the beginning of "photography for the masses", cameras were equipped with a fixed lens, and people lived with "zooming with their feet" to get more detail or a broader view.
This technique had some limitations (like falling off a cliff, or bumping into things), but interchangeable lenses were not available for these entry level cameras, and more versatile "professional" cameras sported a price tag and complexity few people were willing to endure. It seems things haven't change all that much ...
In the end, the cry for more versatility became loud and pressing enough that some manufacturers decided to give it a go.
Still, the camera came packaged with a "standard" lens of fixed focal length (called a "prime"), and other angles of view could be obtained by purchasing additional lenses. This was of course the marketing ploy of the manufacturer in the first place, but that's a different discussion.
Since these standard lenses came bundled with the camera body, they were produced in huge numbers. This allowed the manufacturers to optimise the design and the production process, yielding surprisingly good optics for very reasonable prices. As time went by, even better quality standard lenses could be purchased to get better results, mostly in dimmer light conditions.
The arrival of "cheap" zoom optics in the 80's P&S cameras changed the expectations from the customers, and soon the "standard zoom" replaced the fixed focal length lenses for the majority of amateur photographers.
The limitations of these standard zooms were (and still are) lesser optical quality and slower in light gathering (smaller maximum aperture meaning less light coming into the camera).
This lack of aperture also induced a side effect : it had become very difficult to separate a subject from the background in the image.
Of course, the adept photographer could always invest money in "pro" zooms, but beside the risk of divorce due to the financial strain this means for the mere mortals, the bulk and weight also meant you either had to get to the gym to build some muscles or get a rolling credit with your chiropractor to get your back sorted out every couple of weeks.
In the mean time, the primes dropped off the amateur photographer's radar, unless he was going for the exotic or professional primes. His main reasons for pro primes was/is the search for shallower depth of field and/or low light photography.
And yet, these simple primes still exist in the line-up of the camera manufacturers. They may not have the glamorous ring of their pro prime brethren, but their price and weight make them a very attractive proposition for the photographer in quest of shallow depth of field, bokeh, and low light handheld photography. And for street photography, they are far less conspicuous than the pro brigade.
This blog is centered on these simple primes, and will try to provide "the proof of the pudding" by eating it.
I will be using my Simple Primes (a 50mm f/1.8 and an 85mm f/1.8), mostly at full aperture, and try to compare with lenses like the 24-105 IS f/4 and the 70-200 IS f/2.8 on the same shot.
