The Real Difference Between 40mm and 50mm for Portraits, Weddings, and Travel

Choosing between a 40mm and 50mm lens looks simple on paper, but in real shooting situations, the gap between them matters more than the numbers suggest. The field of view difference alone can determine whether you get three people in a wedding cocktail hour frame or two.

Coming to you from Chris Tellez, this practical video breaks down how the 40mm vs 50mm decision plays out across portraits, events, and travel shooting. Tellez works primarily in weddings and portraits and frames this as a real-world discussion, not a lab test. At a typical cocktail hour, where you might only have six feet of working distance, a 40mm lens gives you roughly 5.5 feet of frame width, enough to fit three or four people comfortably. A 50mm lens in the same spot gets you closer to two, maybe three if they're standing tight. That gap is small in theory and very real when you're working a crowded room.

Tellez also gets into depth of field, which is where the comparison gets more nuanced. At the same aperture and the same distance, a 50mm produces shallower depth of field than a 40mm. In practice, though, if you're adjusting your position to match framing between the two lenses, you're also changing depth of field, so the comparison isn't as clean as it sounds. He also covers background compression, noting that 50mm pulls the background in closer to the subject in a way that 40mm doesn't, though he's honest that for most real-world shooting at these focal lengths, that difference isn't something he's actively thinking about.

The lens options at 40mm are genuinely interesting. Tellez shows the TTArtisan 40mm f/2, which sits in a similar size range to the Nikon 40mm f/2 and the Sony 40mm f/2.5, both compact and capable. There's also the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8, which is remarkably small, and the Voigtländer Nokton 40mm f/1.2 for those who want maximum aperture. The 40mm category has a range of compelling, travel-friendly options that the 50mm space doesn't always match for sheer compactness. On the 50mm side, Tellez points out that the sheer volume of images shot at 50mm over decades means most people have an almost instinctive sense of how those images look, and the availability of affordable options across every system makes it hard to beat for value and familiarity.

Check out the video above for the full rundown from Tellez, including his take on when cropping from 40mm beats switching to 50mm and which focal length he actually reaches for most.