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Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

garyvoth.com

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Re: Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

#161

Post by throwaway290 »

klodolph wrote: post #157
throwaway290 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, more than anything I wanted to present an alternative viewpoint. The author presented his as if it's the only way. I arrived at my understanding after years of learning about photography and experience of doing it not professionally, taking tends of thousands of photos of all sorts of subjects. I think the point about emotional distance is under-appreciated. Of course, this author (and I don't know why) clearly…

> I think the point about emotional distance is under-appreciated. I think you’re presenting your personal aesthetic preferences as more universal than they really are. The wide angle lens gets you physically closer to a subject, not emotionally closer. It can be close and intimate, or your subjects can feel like you’re invading their personal space, or the pictures can end up looking a bit gonzo (think Vice Magazine…

I use the term "emotional distance" (or lack thereof) to describe the feeling of being present/removed from the scene. There are other terms for it too. To argue that a wide close-up doesn't do it and a long lens does is like arguing that a sepia photo evokes less of a nostalgic feeling compared to "normal" color. Yes, people are individual but there's a baseline.

> Sontag

We are not talking about professional photographers here I think

> 50mm f/1.4

In my experience, a full-frame lens with these characteristics would either be huge and heavy or cost upwards from about US$500 new.

> 150ms to focus

In good light.

Vs 0ms for a wide lens.

> excellent bokeh

Maybe to you

> just like getting a 28mm or 35mm equivalent wouldn’t solve everyone’s problems

Just like getting a 35mm or 50mm wouldn't. Wide lenses have important advantages and longer lenses have objective limitations. I listed them to compensate for one-sided article. Apart from focal length affecting presence/emotional distance, which I suspect you genuinely haven't really thought about much, this is probably an empty argument...

Re: Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

#162

Post by astrange »

The_Colonel wrote: post #50
astrange wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mirrorless cameras don’t care what brand their lenses are and 50mm is easy to manual focus. You can get an old Canon FD lens anywhere.

> 50mm is easy to manual focus It's not. Especially at f/1.4.

If your camera has focus peaking and zoom in mode it is. If you don't know how shallow the DoF is and get things out of focus elsewhere in the picture, that's your problem. Don't shoot at f/1.4 then.

Re: Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

#163

Post by klodolph »

throwaway290 wrote: post #161
klodolph wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the point about emotional distance is under-appreciated. I think you’re presenting your personal aesthetic preferences as more universal than they really are. The wide angle lens gets you physically closer to a subject, not emotionally closer. It can be close and intimate, or your subjects can feel like you’re invading their personal space, or the pictures can end up looking a bit gonzo (think Vice Magazine…

I use the term "emotional distance" (or lack thereof) to describe the feeling of being present/removed from the scene. There are other terms for it too. To argue that a wide close-up doesn't do it and a long lens does is like arguing that a sepia photo evokes less of a nostalgic feeling compared to "normal" color. Yes, people are individual but there's a baseline. > Sontag We are not talking about professional photog…

> > Sontag

> We are not talking about professional photographers here I think

Sontag wrote essays which are collected in the 1977 book "On Photography" (and a followup in 2003, "Regarding the Pain of Others"). It's not specifically about professional photography, but about photography in general--family vacation pictures, crime scene photos, etc.

I like the essays because they provide some crucial insights to help me figure out questions like, "Why do I take pictures at all? What kind of pictures do I want to take? What purpose do these pictures serve? How should pictures represent my life?"

> In my experience, a full-frame lens with these characteristics would either be huge and heavy or cost upwards from about US$500 new.

This is easy enough to disprove by looking at the B&H catalog.

You can find large and bulky 50mm f/1.4 lenses. There are also small & light ones. Generally speaking, there are a lot of different lens designs out there, and normal primes have more variety than most. You can find expensive and bulky designs, or simple and light designs, with various tradeoffs.

For about the same price, you can get a 28mm f/2.8, which is typically larger, physically.

> In good light.

I have had problems with autofocus in poor light, when it's nighttime, and the lights are off, and I'm trying to take pictures of my cats. Anything less extreme and the autofocus works accurately and quickly.

Then again, if I tried to take a picture of my cats at night with a wide-angle lens, I'd never get the pictures I wanted.

> Apart from focal length affecting presence/emotional distance, which I suspect you genuinely haven't really thought about much,

Don't be rude.

I disagree with you. Saying that you suspect I "haven't really thought about [it]" is inappropriate.

You also expressed the mistaken suspicion that I hadn't ever used wide angle primes--perhaps, just perhaps, you can't explain away our disagreement by saying that I'm ignorant, or hypothesizing that I'd agree with you if I just spent the time to think about it.

Re: Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

#164

Post by ISL »

shapefrog wrote: post #155
ISL wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Fuji ever makes an X100 with a 50mm-equivalent lens (probably a 35mm f/2), they'll sell a boatload. Quite a few of them will sit on a shelf, though, compared with the 35mm-equivalent X100s of today. You can always crop in, but you can't crop out. If Fuji did make a 50mm X100, though, I'd be on the list. Ricoh made a great choice by bringing the GR IIIx to market. If I ever jump on the GR train, it'll likely be wit…

FUJIFILM TCL-X100 II Tele Conversion Lens - they dont sell a boat load of them. My old X100 field-of-view is spectacular just the way the designer intended it to be. https://shuttermuse.com/fuji-x100-conversion-lens-review-28m...

I have the TCL -- it does work well, but it is so large that it feels very un-X100-like. When I travel with the X100, the TCL comes along, but as a "sometimes" lens, rather than the default.

If Fuji were to come to market with a leaf-shuttered 35mm f/2 comparable in size to the X100's 23mm, I continue to maintain that there'd be a bunch of high-end buyers. It'd be the only 50mm-equivalent instrument of its kind on the market.

Re: Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

#165

Post by SpaceInvader »

wilsonjholmes wrote: post #100
SpaceInvader wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have an APS-C camera, which is quite common, then you want a ~32mm lens, and if you use M4/3 like I do, then you want a 25mm lens, to achieve this same effect. It's not the same effect, far from it. It's different focal length, that will render different image.

Would you mind explaining or offering resources on understanding why it is different? I have a M43 camera as well, and I have always just halved the focal length and aperature I want a lens to be on my system to be a roughly equivalent match to the full frame performance I am trying to emulate.

I'll try :) Generally speaking focal length is a characteristics of a lens which does not change, if you use smaller sensor you're just "cropping" what given focal length would render. For example if you'd have, let's say 100mpix camera and 24mm lens it would give you different perspective than 85mm evn if you would crop 24mm image to have same angle of view as 85mm.

Re: Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

#166

Post by SpaceInvader »

avalys wrote: post #115
SpaceInvader wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have an APS-C camera, which is quite common, then you want a ~32mm lens, and if you use M4/3 like I do, then you want a 25mm lens, to achieve this same effect. It's not the same effect, far from it. It's different focal length, that will render different image.

A 50 mm lens on a full-frame sensor will render an equivalent perspective to a 32 mm lens on an APS-C sensor. You can easily verify this by taking an 24-70 zoom lens on a full-frame sensor, taking one image at 50 mm in full-frame mode and another image at 32 mm in APS-C mode. Depth of field and other optical properties may be different but the perspective will be the same. The only thing that changes the rendering pe…

Actually perspective WILL BE different, angle of view is changing, not what the lens is rendering.

Re: Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens

#167

Post by _HMCB_ »

petepete wrote: post #59
_HMCB_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The Nikon 50mm 1.8 is such a steal and provides for amazing photos.

I love my 50mm f/1.8. I've used it so much over the years and it produces beautiful shots. I also have an old 50mm f/1.4 (which can be had for a steal[0]) and while it's nowhere near as sharp, it has a really dreamy quality about it. [0] https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/nikon-af-nikkor-50mm-f-1-4...

Nice! I had a couple of the older Nikon lenses. A few were manual and one was auto focus. I’ll have to keep the vintage 1.4 in mind. Thanks!
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