[HN Gopher] Classic 50mm "Normal" Lens
___________________________________________________________________
Classic 50mm "Normal" Lens
Author : Tomte
Score : 86 points
Date : 2022-10-30 14:44 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.garyvoth.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.garyvoth.com)
| oliwarner wrote:
| The Nifty Fifty is a forgotten lens? Since when?
|
| It's a classic, super cheap and usually very fast prime that's a
| recommended starter prime on every photography website I've ever
| visited.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Because I am old I grew up when zoom lenses generally were not
| good. So I always used prime lenses. Even now, when
| intellectually I know that thanks to fancy glass and cad-cam
| methods, zoom lenses are much better than they used to be, I
| still tend not to use them. But lately I tend to use either a 28
| or 85 rather than the 50.
| podiki wrote:
| Title should be "The Forgotten Lens" though as a fan of the 50mm
| just "The" Lens works for me :)
|
| The 50mm f/1.8 Z lens for Nikon is really magical, I love any
| chance to use it.
| muro wrote:
| Same here, have a bunch of lenses, but this one is almost
| always on the camera. I'm tempted by the 50mm 1.2, but its
| price gives me pause and I'm worried about its weight.
| _ph_ wrote:
| One shouldn't get too crazy about aperture. On a modern 35mm
| camera you rarely need the f/1.4. Certainly not for gathering
| enough light and usually the DOF is small enough at f/2
| already. So you can get a much lighter and cheaper lens by
| not going for the fastest aperture.
|
| A nice alternative are the Voigtlander lenses, which are
| available or adaptable to modern mirrorless cameras. They
| tend to be less pricy and quite compact. I personally love my
| Voigtlander 50/3.5. It isn't the fastest lens, obviously, but
| lovely, compact and has a great image quality. Steve Huff had
| a glowing review of it some time ago.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| In general I agree, but as you probably know, the answer
| almost always is - it depends :)
|
| So it depends on the focal length. I use both 24 and 35mm
| at 1.4 pretty much every-time I use them. At those focal
| lengths, and normal subject distances, they don't have
| crazy shallow depth-of-field where only one eye-lash is in
| focus. I can get great environmental portraits where the
| subject pops a bit more than 1.8/2.0 etc.
| zokier wrote:
| > The 50mm lens, once the mainstay of 35mm photography, has been
| all but forgotten by today's photographers.
|
| > Before falling to its current level of disfavor, the 50mm lens
| had a long and distinguished pedigree
|
| umm, I'm pretty sure nifty-fiftys have been top recommendation
| always for people wanting to explore beyond the kit zoom. And
| quickly checking some camera stores, indeed, they are one of the
| top selling lenses around. Not really sure where author is
| getting the idea that it is some obscure forgotten relic.
| combatentropy wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure nifty-fiftys have been top recommendation
| always for people wanting to explore beyond the kit zoom.
|
| His article isn't addressed to "people wanting to explore
| beyond the kit zoom". It's addressed to people who just
| finished unwrapping "that new 35mm camera kit you bought to
| document your child's early years", who accepted the default
| lens and have only a foggy awareness of the pros and cons of
| different lenses. His article is meant to turn these people
| into "people wanting to explore beyond the kit zoom".
| TomK32 wrote:
| It's an old piece and maybe not of of the famous lenses, but all
| I could afford in the late oughts: A Konica Autoreflex T4 with
| the 50mm/1.8 pancake and I did some great photos with it.
| Nowadays I often use it on a modern 4/3rds with an adapter (not
| so pancake) and still gives me a nice handling.
| FortiDude wrote:
| My brain sees in 4:3 40mm, 50mm on 3:2 cameras feels too crammed
| mgrund wrote:
| The "nifty fifty" is certainly not forgotten and absolutely a
| great buy.
| rabuse wrote:
| It's basically everyone's first lens for the bokeh craze, and
| then you just keep hunting for even creamier bokeh, until
| you're broke and wondering where all your money went.
| simonblack wrote:
| I paid a lot of money for a super-duper zoom lens, way back when.
| But I kept leaving that zoom lens in my bag and using only the
| 'standard' 50mm lens because it was a far better lens.
|
| Today we use crappy phone lenses and force ourselves to think
| that they're wonderful, but I have very fond memories of that
| Canon 50mm lens on my Canon film camera.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Site says 2022, but I could have written this in 2007. With the
| addition of -- get the flash off the camera, and set the power
| manually. Off the camera makes the flash light define the shape
| of what you're shooting, and setting the power manually means no
| preflash -- so no blinks.
|
| Personally, I went from the 50 to a 40/2.8 which had a much
| faster focus speed and better build quality -- and I basically
| never shot wide open anyway because the focus plane would be so
| narrow as to be unusable. And the 100/2, which was just an
| awesome lens, good color, shape, everything.
|
| But in the intervening 15 years, DSLRs are now dead, mirrorless
| is hanging on, and basically, it's computational photography from
| phones. Best camera is the one you have and so that's where it's
| done. It doesn't hurt that Apple has more R/D budget for their
| phone than the entire legacy camera industry.
|
| But given the prices of the 5d on ebay now, I might must pick up
| the camera I lusted for then and couldn't afford, so that it can
| spend time gathering dust on the shelf like the other DSLRs.
| Marazan wrote:
| 50mm prime is like a cheat code for photography. Slapping one on
| my camera improved my shots by an order of magnitude
| rixrax wrote:
| My cell phone has become my normal lens. New phones from both
| Apple and Google take such a good photos that literally all my
| street photography is shot with them. I'll grab my trusty A7r4 /w
| either wide or very long variety of lenses if I will be going to
| some special place etc. with specific purpose of shooting
| something that is (in my opinion that is) worth recording in the
| detail only achievable with this gear. But other than some far
| and few grand landscapes or wildlife, most of my most amazing(?)
| photos nowadays come from my cell phone. Case in point - was
| driving last night along the city street and was passing this
| church/graveyard which just looked amazingly spooky in the
| dark/fog/street lighting; stopped my car in the middle of the
| street, rolled down the window, and snapped couple of (raw)
| photos with the phone before driving away. Because the phone is
| with me all the time, it has become my new normal lens.
| natas wrote:
| If I had only one lens, it would be a 50mm prime. I have 3, mind
| you, a 35mm, 50mm and 90mm, but 99% of the time, I only attach
| the 50mm to the camera; zero regrets.
| aimor wrote:
| What's limiting new digital cameras from becoming faster? A
| decade ago a friend showed me his digital camera with an ISO
| setting in the thousands and I was amazed at how little noise
| there was. I've since been a little disappointed that I'm still
| balancing noise and aperture shooting indoors. Phones take on the
| problem with heavy image processing, but I'm interested in
| hardware solutions.
| astrange wrote:
| Is the a7s not fast enough for you?
|
| Shooting indoors is unfixable because there isn't full spectrum
| light; you'll have to make up some of the missing colors
| eventually.
| excite1997 wrote:
| What do you mean? The current crop of high-end cameras is
| absolutely amazing in that respect. Take Canon R5, where usable
| ISO settings extend at least to 32,000 (and the upper limit is
| 102,400).
| adrr wrote:
| You need lower pixel counts on the sensor for better ISO
| performance. Larger the sensor pixels, more light they get.
| Sony A7S have low pixel sensors and have performance better
| than a human eye. Night time shots with a full moon look like
| it's a day time shot.
| [deleted]
| uniqueuid wrote:
| I could not agree more, and the reason is an empirical one:
|
| Looking back over the past 10 years, the best and most photos
| that I've taken were with a simple ~$300 Sigma 50mm f 1.4. I do
| have Canon L glass, but the bokeh and low-light speed just
| dominate most other considerations.
|
| There's also one super important benefit/limitation that I love:
| With a prime lens, you zoom with your feet. That's not actually
| bad, you just need to get in people's faces to have them close
| up. And that in and of itself (often) yields great shots.
| hengheng wrote:
| I've outgrown it, personally. For that "natural" perspective,
| 35mm is still wide enough to shoot a scene "the way you see it",
| but it can still be surprisingly intimate. And for the "portrait"
| thing, anything 70-100mm is a sweet spot. 50mm is trying to split
| the difference between both scenarios but doesn't really achieve
| either. So personally, I'm more likely to carry a 35+85 duo. Or
| in fact, a 50mm f/1.8 on an APS-C crop camera along with my
| smartphone. Or, a smartphone with a portrait lens. I just zoom in
| from the default 24mm a lot of times, that's it.
|
| From a tech point of view, 50mm is the easiest lens to build.
| That's why they used to be on everything. Not because they're
| useful. A symmetric double gauss setup with six lenses is kinda
| straightforward and it works okay, it even becomes excellent once
| stopped down. Sharp 35mm lenses that are also fast can only be
| built with aspherical lenses, so traditionally it wasn't really
| possible to build fast ones that are also good. Recent ones are
| excellent, but as always, many photographers refuse to go with
| the times, and they'll repeat decade old advice.
|
| (TL;DR: Smartphones do a lot of things right, and their evolution
| was backed by data. They first went from 28mm to 24mm, added 16mm
| second, then added 75mm third, and only then did they add 48mm as
| a 2x zoom into the 24mm camera. It's neat, but not essential.)
| adrr wrote:
| 50mm is my least used lens. I don't even bother carrying it on
| trips. Like you said portrait is 70mm or higher. Landscape I
| use 24mm.
|
| 24 to 70 2.8 is the best lens because it can do landscapes and
| portraits. I may carry a fast prime lens if I am shooting
| indoors.
| mav88 wrote:
| I have the 50mm 1.4 from Canon and it's gorgeous. I also have a
| 50mm Summicron on my old Leica IIIf and it could have been made
| yesterday.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| If you have an SLR or mirrorless camera, don't yet own any prime
| lenses (a lens that doesn't zoom), and you want your photographs
| to get a _lot_ better very quickly, go buy the 50mm f /1.8 lens
| your camera manufacturer makes and only use that for a couple
| months.
| dieortin wrote:
| I'm curious, why is this?
| ISL wrote:
| Aside from the clarity that a prime brings to your
| composition, the optics in a 50mm f/1.8 are frequently much
| better than what you'll find from a kit-lens zoom.
|
| A Canon 50mm f/1.8 at f/8 as as sharp as anything you'll ever
| use -- outperforming many professional lenses.
|
| In the long run, though, a prime helps you to understand what
| goes into composing a great image. It takes time to learn a
| focal length and learn which focal lengths resonate with you.
|
| I have recently dabbled with a standard zoom for the first
| time in ages -- to me, it is now a collection of f/4 prime
| lenses that are accessible with the turn of a dial, each of
| whom have their own perspective, character, habits, and
| temperament. As I work to compose an image with it, I now
| decide, before I bring the camera to my eye, which focal
| length I _want_ and select it. If the composition is off,
| then I _move_ to bring the image together. Without extensive
| experience with primes, I 'd never have understood the power
| of the changes in perspective that even small changes in
| focal-length can bring. (See a sibling comment of mine on
| this post waxing poetic about the differences between 50mm,
| 40mm, and 35mm.)
|
| (you can, of course, get the same experience at lower cost
| with discipline and duct-tape holding a zoom at fixed focal
| lengths for days at a time, but most people don't succeed
| with that approach)
| _qua wrote:
| In my limited photography experience, a prime lens forces you
| to move and work more to get a pleasing composition which
| teaches your eye better than twisting a zoom lens.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| I think so too. You have to think more to get good shots,
| and although you lose zoom you get to use DoF as a creative
| dimension.
| astrange wrote:
| 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.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > 50mm is easy to manual focus
|
| It's not. Especially at f/1.4.
| jetrink wrote:
| Have you ever used a manual focus lens on a mirrorless
| camera with focus-peaking[1] on? It's so easy to focus, it
| feels like cheating. It makes a 50mm usable wide open.
| (This is assuming your subject is relatively static or at
| least cooperative. Small children and animals really
| benefit from autofocus or a smaller aperture.)
|
| 1. For those unfamiliar with the term, focus peaking is a
| feature of most mirrorless cameras that highlights areas of
| the image that are in focus, usually in bright red. It
| makes it very intuitive to adjust the focus precisely, so
| much so that you soon find yourself subconsciously making
| fine adjustments by leaning slightly forward or back,
| rather than manipulating the lens.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Yes, I used many manual lenses on my Fuji XT-10 and XT-2
| - 12mm f/2, 35mm f/1.2, 56mm f/1.4 (all crop of course)
| among others. The only one I would say was easy was the
| 12mm (for obvious reasons).
|
| > This is assuming your subject is relatively static or
| at least cooperative.
|
| Well, there you go, that's a pretty important caveat. It
| makes e.g. candid photography pretty challenging.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Agreed. From my perspective, someone who would benefit
| from my advice doesn't need the added challenge of
| dealing with manual focusing in addition to properly
| composing their frame.
|
| I see it as being similar to an innovation token in
| software development. Choose to learn one new thing at a
| time, not two or three.
|
| https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology
|
| Once you're comfortable with a 50mm with autofocus, go
| nuts! Turn off AF on your lens or body. Practice with
| manual focusing.
|
| Buy an old Canon FD lens and see how delightful these
| vintages lenses are on a modern body! Then, attach it to
| a Canon AE-1 and learn how to shoot black and white film!
|
| Lots to learn; just don't bite off too much at one time.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Sure, but using auto-focus is even easier. I can achieve
| focus in under a second. And with subject detection +
| eye-AF, there really is no comparison.
|
| In my opinion, focus peaking is somewhat useful for
| video, macro and astro. I say somewhat because it depends
| on the implementation. Some implementations (e.g. Sony)
| also apply in-camera picture settings (which adds
| sharpening to the output of the JPEG engine - which feeds
| the EVF), which can give you a false sense of sharp-
| focus. You'll see a ton of red, when actually the red is
| coming from the JPEG sharpening, not the change in focus.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Auto focus _on something_ can be easier, however at this
| point you may not have enough focus points to hit the
| right thing, or the best shot can be a compromise focus
| between several things which is easier to achieve through
| analog interface.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Its not an analog interface. On the lens hardware side
| most lenses today focus by wire, and the EVF is digital,
| the focus peaking overlay is an edge + contrast-detection
| filter (which is imperfect due to JPEG sharpness
| misleading the engine to show an area as high focus when
| it isn't). Also the in the hardware/optical realm, the
| plane of focus is never flat in three dimensions, there
| is always a curvature to it (and this curvature changes
| based on the focusing distance).
|
| Can you put forth an example of a real world situation
| that we can discuss?
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| 50mm was pretty much the only lens I used for ages when I was
| shooting film. I had an old Pentax KX SLR (like the K1000 but
| with a few more bells & whistles), and a regular f/1.7 50mm
| manual focus lens -- and I loved it. Shot rolls and rolls of
| film.
|
| I highly recommend shooting old-school like this, as practice.
| After a while, you stop needing to meter, even, because you
| understand the light conditions and can pre-emptively configure
| the camera to do exactly what you want. Then, focus and shoot.
|
| The other thing shooting on film taught me is that one perfect
| photo is better than 100 bad ones. I find that digital
| photography natives tend to rely on burst features in an attempt
| to capture the right moment. But in my experience, especially
| with portraiture, waiting and then grabbing the precise moment
| can produce better results.
| regular wrote:
| It should be noted that if you're using an APS-C (or Super-35mm
| for motion pictures) sensor, the 35mm is your "normal" lens.
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| I've been using 3 'L'-series Canon zoom lenses to cover 16mm to
| 400mm and been very pleased with their performance as an amateur
| landscape/wildlife photographer having come to grips with their
| cost and weight. I recently bought an new, inexpensive 50mm/f1.8
| lens off E-bay and spent a day shooting flowers at a local
| municipal rose garden and had an absolute blast. When I loaded my
| images onto the computer and had my first real chance to review
| them, I was very impressed. They're tack sharp, great color
| balance, and absolutely no vignetting in the corners. It's a
| perfectly usable lens in the right circumstances and I'll find a
| place for it in my bag.
| 323 wrote:
| I have a highly regarded, but old 50/1.4. I also have a cheaper
| 50-300/3.5-4.
|
| Big surprise - the 50-300 zoom looks MUCH better than the 50/1.4
| at 50 mm. I'm talking about the colors, they are just better and
| more natural (less aberrations probably). Of course, if you have
| enough light since it's slower.
|
| I investigated this, and it turns out modern lenses have much
| better coatings and other optimizations.
|
| Conclusion: lens age matters too, if it's an old design
| investigate.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| I completely believe you, at f8. I'm not sure I do if both are
| at f3.5. And of course the zoom can't do f2.8, f2 & f1.4 which
| are three good reasons to use the prime. (This is without
| getting into "character", because it's so subjective.)
| writeslowly wrote:
| As someone who got into photography relatively recently, if
| you've only used modern lenses, old (or extremely cheap) lenses
| can be really interesting to use as well. My 1970s Olympus 50mm
| f.14 or low budget Chinese f1.2 give me interesting colors and
| lens flares that I've never seen with modern lens designs.
| rkuska wrote:
| My favourite portable cheap full frame lense is 40mm summicron
| (yeah cheap and summicron, weird right?)
| https://www.35mmc.com/02/04/2016/leica-40mm-summicron-review...
| jeffbee wrote:
| These are still useful on a micro four-thirds body, just not in
| the way you might expect. With a speed booster, you reverse most
| of the magnification and throw a huge amount of light on those
| small sensors. A Nikon 50mm AF-D on a .71x speed booster and an
| m43 body is a disturbingly fast setup at ~70mm equivalent field
| of view.
|
| All that said, the state-of-the-art fast primes for the m43
| systems have left the classic 50/1.4 in the dust. The performance
| of the Olympus 25mm f/1.2 is utterly amazing. The only quibble
| with the lens is it's huge.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Modern lenses will always benefit from modern materials, design
| and manufacturing techniques. That said the benefits of M43 as
| a format are shrinking with the advent of small compact FF
| cameras. Your 25mm f/1.2 lens is equivalent (from a field-of-
| view and depth-of-field standpoint) to a full-frame 50mm f/2.4
| lens or thereabouts.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The size of the m43 kit was never the benefit, to me. The
| first thing I did was add a grip because the Olympus body was
| too small. Then I added another grip so I can hold it the
| other way. Now it's as big as any 35mm I owned.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Fair enough, but I'd wager most articles written about the
| benefits of the M43 format do bring up the size and weight
| savings compared to full frame systems.
|
| To me, the smaller sensor in M43 does have a few unique
| benefits over FF.
|
| * faster readout (less rolling-shutter)
|
| * less power-consumption and therefore less heat-generation
| (longer record-time limits, more power for computational
| photography)
|
| * less inertial mass for the sensor & assembly (better
| sensor-stabilization for hand-held video)
|
| * higher wafer yield in manufacturing (hopefully lower cost
| , if economies-of-scale allow for it)
| _ph_ wrote:
| You can get very compact 35mm bodies now, but lenses tended
| to grow in recent years to cope with the growing pixel
| counts. So overall a mFT kit will be significant smaller than
| 35mm unless you talk about a Leica M :)
|
| The Olympus 25/1.2 is a stunning lens, but certainly large
| for a mFT lens. it is still slightly smaller than a Leica
| 50/2 L-mount lens.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Lens size and weight changes due to many aspects - number
| of extra corrective/aspherical/low dispersion elements, the
| _equivalent_ aperture, the number of focusing motors,
| whether the lens has optical image stabilization, whether
| it is weather sealed, whether it is made out of plastic or
| metal, etc, etc.
|
| Its not easy to just isolate for sensor size. But _in
| general_, you can make small full-frame lenses which will
| be equivalent to micro four thirds lenses. The problem is
| that they won't sell. Today, few people want f/2.8, f/4,
| f/5.6 primes for full-frame. Most people shooting full-
| frame want F/1.2, F/1.8 or F/1.4 primes.
| _HMCB_ wrote:
| I very much agree with this article. As someone relatively new to
| photography (less than four years), prime lenses have allowed me
| better quality for less money with a wider variation of
| lenses/applications. 20mm for architecture and interiors; 50mm
| for street or environmental portraits; 85mm for beautiful rather
| close-up portraits; 105mm macro for product shots and mid-range
| portraits.
| leephillips wrote:
| This first appeared no later than 20071, and is replete with mild
| anachronisms. I personally find this kind of silent re-purposing
| of old articles offensive; it adds chaos to scholarship and seems
| at least somewhat dishonest.
|
| 1https://sunbane.com/gary-voth-photography-the-forgotten-lens...
| noncoml wrote:
| I have a tons of cameras and lenses from Nikon, Sony, and Canon,
| but yet I find myself just picking up the x100f no matter what
| the occasion is.
| adrian_b wrote:
| > "The 50mm lens is called a "normal" or "standard" lens because
| the way it renders perspective closely matches that of the human
| eye."
|
| This sentence is confusing and wrong.
|
| A perspective that "closely matches that of the human eye" has
| nothing to do with the focal distance of a lens.
|
| Such a perspective is obtained whenever you look at a photograph
| from such a distance so that you will see it under the same angle
| under which it has been seen by the photo camera.
|
| For a normal 50 mm lens, that means that you must look at a 4:3
| photograph from a distance about twice the height of the
| photograph, e.g. from about 60 cm when looking at a photograph
| whose height is 30 cm and whose width is 40 cm.
|
| The normal focal length of around 50 mm has been chosen after
| some experiments about which is the maximum vision angle under
| which a painting or photograph can be seen, when looking at the
| complete ensemble, and not at details, while being able to
| perceive correctly the perspective relationships inside the
| image. The conclusion was that the aspect ratio must be around
| 4:3 and the viewing distance about twice the image height.
|
| So it is a distance that feels comfortable for humans when
| looking at the entire image. Being much farther away diminishes
| the perception of small details, while being much closer makes
| difficult the perception of the complete image simultaneously.
|
| When a photograph is taken with a wide-angular lens, one would
| have to look at the image from a too small distance, to match the
| original perspective. When a photograph is taken with a long-
| focus lens, one would have to look at the photograph from too far
| away, to match the original perspective.
|
| N.B. The correct viewing distance for the normal perspective is
| from about twice the height of the image. I have no idea who has
| originated the very widespread myth that the right distance is
| the diagonal of the image. A computation for either 4:3 or 3:2
| images would show that their diagonals are much less than 50 mm,
| when viewed from the corresponding angle of a normal lens (e.g.
| the diagonal of a 36 mm x 24 mm image is 43 mm). Moreover, 50 mm
| is at the lower limit of the normal focal lengths. Many normal
| camera lenses had slightly longer focal lengths, up to 54 mm, or
| even 56 mm, which were even farther from the diagonal lengths of
| the images.
| LegitShady wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20020606074506/http://vothphoto....
|
| Title should be updated with the original year of publication
| (2002)
| contingencies wrote:
| List of Canon 50mm lenses:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EF_50mm_lens
|
| The cheapest Canon 50mm, _EF50mm f /1.8 II_, is affectionately
| called "plastic fantastic" or "nifty fifty" and is super cheap.
| petargyurov wrote:
| This is good timing -- I am literally in the middle of
| researching lenses and film SLR cameras for a beginner -- I'm
| looking to get into film photography.
|
| Anyone here have recommendations?
|
| I am currently reading about the Olympus OM-1 and it all sounds
| great apart from the lack of exposure compensation (but that
| might just teach me the hard way).
| wuyishan wrote:
| Have a look at the Fujifilm X-S10 https://fujifilm-x.com/en-
| sg/products/cameras/x-s10/
|
| I like it a lot.
| q-base wrote:
| Get a Nikon FE! There are tons of cheap Nikon glass. It has
| exposure compensation as you mention. It has a brilliant way of
| turning of the light meter so it won't drain your battery, when
| not in use and is just an overall pleasure to use. Some of my
| best photographs has been captured on my Nikon FE.
|
| https://www.35mmc.com/10/02/2022/appreciating-what-you-alrea...
| copperx wrote:
| I have a Nikon FE with a 50mm prime, it's great. Would you
| mind sharing how do you process and scan you photos?
| twic wrote:
| I bought a Canon A-1 in order to (re)learn shooting with film.
| I haven't used it intensively, but i have been happy with it.
| It's a bit later than the OM-1, so has electronic metering,
| including exposure compensation.
|
| I was drawn towards a Canon by the abundant supply of second-
| hand old lenses for it. Nikon's old lenses are still (somewhat)
| compatible with their modern cameras, so they are more
| expensive; other manufacturers' lenses are a little harder to
| come by.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It's not the only take on the subject, and I actually think it's
| quite mistaken.
|
| 50mm is great for street portraits or fashion shots. This is
| where you 1) can't come too close to not spook the subject, 2)
| want tighter framing, 3) want to put your subject on a little bit
| of a pedestal so to speak, or 4) want to make a huge print out of
| your shot.
|
| However, for candid "photos of your own loved ones" as in the
| article, I think you'll find it a pain. In these circumstances I
| can't recommend enough a wide lens instead. Try both and make
| your conclusions.
|
| - On the surface a wide lens makes things look "farther away",
| but in fact what it does is emphasize the actual distances in the
| scene-- meaning with close-up shots it gives a strong sense of
| presence, which is presumably what you want. 50mm might be good
| for fashion portraits, but for shots like in TFA it's IMO way too
| long and puts unnecessary emotional distance between you and the
| subject (this was my first feeling when I looked at author's
| photos).
|
| - The article sidesteps the fact that F-number is not the only
| factor in motion blur. 1/8 second with a 21mm lens is not great
| but it'd look loads better than 1/8 with a 50mm lens that would
| be very unforgiving as far as any shake.
|
| - Framing and focusing is much less finicky. For casual snaps
| most of the time you don't even need to look at the screen: with
| close-ups it's self evident where the camera is facing, and if
| something is happening right now a little distance away just
| point your camera in the general direction and you'll most likely
| have it in frame. And if you have some time to frame for
| aesthetics, it's still easier because unlike a long lens with
| background separation a wide one wouldn't over-emphasize every
| object that happens to be near your subject.
|
| Get a prime lens compact like Ricoh GR, it's too wide for street
| portraits but your loved ones will not object if you occasionally
| use it in close proximity.
| klodolph wrote:
| I cannot recommend a 35mm for close-up pictures of people. The
| perspective is too weird. I have a 35mm lens, I used it a lot,
| and it has its uses--and the main way I use it is to capture
| more of the room or more people when I'm taking pictures
| indoors. Going too close with it results in distorted pictures
| which is fine as an artistic choice but it's not the choice
| most people want to make.
|
| The Ricoh GR III has a 28mm equivalent, which puts it well into
| the "wide angle" category. You may like shooting with a 28mm
| FOV, or you may absolutely hate it. If you want to buy a camera
| like that, try it out first and see how you like it.
|
| > Meanwhile 50mm is good for fashion,
|
| It's really not. I would start at like 90mm equivalent for
| fashion or general portraiture (i.e. not candids).
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| >Going too close with it results in distorted pictures which
| is fine as an artistic choice but it's not the choice most
| people want to make.
|
| Most people are used to seeing smartphone photos now, which
| (until recently) only had a wider FOV. I think stylistically,
| candid/general portrait photography is changing, and I think
| environmental portraits are much more in vogue than tighter
| framing with longer focal lengths. 24/28/35mm portraits seem
| to be more popular than 85+mm.
|
| Just my view, feel free to agree/disagree.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Feel free to maintain your opinion, but I can't agree with
| it.
|
| > I cannot recommend a 35mm for close-up pictures of people.
|
| Also a little too long. Emotional distance, framing
| difficulty, yada yada. 28mm is probably the best bet for
| casual candids with relatives for the reasons I listed.
|
| > The perspective is too weird.
|
| Who cares. If you fail to capture a memorable moment because
| you were busy looking into the viewfinder focusing and
| framing, you fail, period. Very hard to do with a wide lens.
|
| Distortion is just not a problem for casual shots of loved
| ones. It's not fashion or advertisement-- for the purposes of
| capturing memory & feeling you may want to emphasise intimacy
| and presence rather than perfection of proportions.
|
| > It's really not. I would start at like 90mm equivalent for
| fashion or general portraiture (i.e. not candids).
|
| Hard disagree. Wow. A prime of 90mm poses way too many
| constraints to work with. Unless we're talking professional
| photography, at which point you might be OK investing loads
| in a high-quality zoom/a spacious studio/lights/etc., there's
| really no point in shelling out for a lens that long that
| would be useless in most scenarios.
| Finnucane wrote:
| It used to be pretty common in ye olde dates for studio
| photographers to use 85 or even 105mm lenses to get flatter
| fields and a little distance from the subject.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| We aren't talking about studio or generally professional
| photography are we... But yes, the longer the lens the
| more emotional distance. A wide lens puts the viewer
| right in the middle of the action.
| klodolph wrote:
| I've never heard someone talk about "emotional distance"
| as being related to focal length and to be honest it
| doesn't have the ring of truth.
|
| Longer focal lengths don't even create physical distance.
| What happens is that people sometimes choose to step
| farther away when using a longer focal length, but you
| don't have to do that.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Common hobbyist wisdom is that you use a longer lens to
| make the subject feel closer without coming closer. This
| is subtly wrong. In the eye of the viewer the distance
| eliminated through focal length is felt in a different
| way. If you want a photo that takes you back to being
| close to someone, _come close_ and use a wider lens.
| klodolph wrote:
| You're personally excited about wide-angle lenses and you
| seem to be convinced that everyone else will feel the same
| way about them, for candids of friends and family, and I
| just don't think that's true. You say that longer lenses
| create "emotional distance" but this is, to be honest, one
| of the most horeshit photography opinions I've heard. The
| lens doesn't create emotional _anything,_ it just changes
| what you get in the frame.
|
| I like the way the photos in the article look. They're not
| _your_ style.
|
| I've spent time with a lot of other hobby photographers and
| there's always a few people with preferences like yours,
| but it's never been a majority, and most photographers I've
| met have the humility to recognize that their own personal
| choices aren't automatically the right choices for others.
|
| > Who cares. If you fail to capture a memorable moment
| because you were busy looking into the viewfinder focusing
| and framing, you fail, period. Very hard to do with a wide
| lens.
|
| Framing is not a problem that goes away if you use wide-
| angle lens. You can shoot wide and crop later, but all
| you're doing is changing _when_ you 're making the framing
| decisions, and the crop-later approach has the disadvantage
| that when you crop, it's too late to reframe. Framing is
| not easier with wide-angle lenses versus normal lenses.
| It's easier to get something in-frame, but harder to keep
| something out.
|
| There's no "default" lens which is right for everyone or
| every circumstance.
|
| I'm also not sure why it would take me longer to frame or
| focus with a 50mm lens. For candids, I almost always use an
| autofocus camera these days. It focuses at the touch of a
| button.
|
| > Wow. A prime of 90mm poses way too many constraints to
| work with.
|
| I've been using a 90mm equivalent for a long, long time.
| It's my go-to lens for when a friend who's a makeup artist
| or costume designer wants a good picture of their work, or
| when somebody wants a simple portrait, and I think it's
| easy to work with.
|
| Maybe I just got used to working within those constraints.
| And maybe... just maybe... you got used to working with the
| constraints of a 35mm lens, and you've forgotten what it
| felt like when you were first dealing with those
| constraints.
|
| I've done a lot of personal with 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm
| equivalent primes. There's a reason why people who get a
| set of three prime lenses most often get three lenses in
| this range or something similar--like 28mm, 45mm, 110mm.
|
| It's easy to fall in love with the look of a wide-angle
| lens and then get disillusioned with it. You find that
| you're including too much stuff in-frame that you don't
| want, or you find that you're shooting too close to people
| and they look distorted. That's why I recommend that people
| spend some time with a wide-angle lens before deciding if
| they want to purchase a camera with a fixed wide-angle
| lens, like the Ricoh GR III. The Ricoh GR III is like $900
| and forces you to use a 28mm perspective or crop in post--
| not everyone is going to like that.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| 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
| _wanted_ to create the distance--you can see it by
| frequent use of monochrome /sepia coloring that mimics
| the nostalgic look of old photos. However, this was left
| unsaid, and someone may miss this factor when choosing
| the lens based on this article.
|
| > Framing is not a problem that goes away if you use
| wide-angle lens. ... It's easier to get something in-
| frame, but harder to keep something out.
|
| The core task is different IMO. When you are enjoying
| family time, especially with children, it's more
| important to 1) get something in frame in any way
| possible _fast_ while 2) still being in the moment
| yourself than with other types of photography. If you are
| shooting children as models that 's different, sure.
|
| > I'm also not sure why it would take me longer to frame
| or focus with a 50mm lens. For candids, I almost always
| use an autofocus camera these days. It focuses at the
| touch of a button.
|
| If you haven't tried wide-all-the-time, try. I shot a lot
| wide (20-28mm), 40-50mm and 75mm. With wider lenses I
| often shot from the hip with subsecond time between the
| moment and the shot, and got interesting dynamic frames
| (and I rarely crop). It just doesn't happen already at
| ~40mm, even if I spam shoot, I need to see the frame.
|
| As to focus, you don't even _need_ to focus many ~25mm
| lenses if you shoot with moderately closed aperture (just
| leave it around 5m~infinity). A longer lens makes it much
| easier for subject to be off, I have to make sure focus
| is right and a compact camera 's autofocus is rarely
| reliable enough in low light to capture action. Remember
| that this is candid family shots, there's no proper
| lighting.
|
| And 75mm, while great for street portraits or casual
| fashion, is additionally unusable as a main driver for
| candid family shots since in a random room you often
| can't back far enough away to capture enough of the
| action. In the circumstances described it's easier to
| come closer rather than opposite.
|
| I thought 40-50mm would be a nice middle ground, but it
| doesn't give the really pronounced separation, bokeh and
| aesthetics of longer lenses like 75mm yet it does make
| things more challenging in all regards for no good (to
| me) reason. I find it OK for street shots but now I am
| more informed about its limitations in other scenarios.
| Lio wrote:
| I've had a couple of Fujifilm X100 cameras with their fixed prime
| lenses over the last few years. For me I've grown to love the
| 35mm eqv. focal length they provide.
|
| I have 50mm and 28mm eqv. converters for it but hardly ever use
| them.
|
| Recently I've really got into shooting landscapes with it, which
| is daft as no one shoots landscapes at 35mm. It would generally
| be regarded as not quite wide enough or not quite long enough.
| Still I think that's part of the appeal for me.
|
| Limiting yourself to just one fixed prime is, in a way, very
| liberating. It's one less thing to think about and it forces you
| to walk about to get the framing you want.
|
| Having said that if I was taking money to shoot someone's wedding
| again I would definitely break out my old Nikon DSLRs and a pair
| of zoom lens.
| isatty wrote:
| I use A Fuji body as well (xe3) and also find the 35mm f/2 my
| go to lens (52mm FF equivalent). Fujinon glass is excellent so
| if you want to walk around on a vacation instead of a wedding
| I'd definitely just grab the 18-55 zoom instead.
| oktwtf wrote:
| Agree 100%. I shoot on an xt3 and cannot believe the
| consistent sharp and clear images through the Fuji glass.
| Also the kit lens is fantastic, only thing I'd love is if it
| could reach a bit farther. I'm sure there is an upgrade out
| there for and arm and a leg...
|
| I have some old glass for my Pentax SP1000 which I was able
| to adapt to shoot on the new mirrorless. Some of the bookeh
| really is magical on those Super Takumar lenses. The crop is
| a bit of a mess, but photos are nice.
| pixelfarmer wrote:
| Over time I ended up with 21, 35, and 90mm as my go-to lenses.
| I used the 35 for many years now, which includes landscape
| pictures. With that said, I also use 90mm for that, because
| landscape pretty much covers the whole focal length spectrum,
| not just wide angle. 50mm is only stuffed into the bag for when
| I don't have to optimize for weight and it makes sense to have
| it around (portraits in tighter spaces).
|
| In return, 50mm is usually cheaper than even 35mm options. On
| APS-C cameras this ends up being 75..80mm, which is already in
| the realm of portrait lenses, i.e. somewhat more restricted in
| its use than on FF bodies.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I owned the original X100 and used it for several years as my
| only camera. I tried to like it, embrace the "liberation" etc.
| But it did not work out and it got me to dislike the 35mm focal
| length.
|
| 35mm is kind of good as a universal focal length - wide enough
| for most needs and tele enough for basic "environmental"
| portraiture. But it's also "boring" in the sense that it can do
| most things, but does not really excel at anything. I noticed
| that I use it more and more as a point and shoot and my
| photography stagnated.
|
| Then I got into another "need more lenses" phase settling again
| for mostly (though not exclusively) a single lens - but this
| time 53mm (= fuji xf 35mm). I feel more creatively alive - the
| lens is more fun in the sense that it excels more, but also
| requires more thought into it.
|
| YMMV.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| A few caveats to this.
|
| One, the recommended 50mm focal length lens here is specific to
| full-frame cameras with 35mm sensors. 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.
|
| Of course it's a lot simpler to abstract away the camera sensor
| size and simply look at field of view, which for a 50mm full-
| frame lens is about 40 degrees. This is actually not that much;
| it's quite "zoomed-in" in appearance compared to everything you
| can see at once through your eyes, which is at least 90 degrees
| field of view plus more for your peripheral vision. So the
| following quote from the article is definitely inaccurate:
|
| > The 50mm lens is called a "normal" or "standard" lens because
| the way it renders perspective closely matches that of the human
| eye.
|
| To really match the experience of being there, you need an
| ultrawide lens to capture the full human field of view. The 40
| degree field of view of a nifty fifty is like looking through a
| narrow doggy cone of shame.
| SpaceInvader wrote:
| > 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.
| avalys wrote:
| 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 perspective is the
| physical location of the camera. If the camera does not move
| and you take a picture with the same field of view, the
| perspective will be identical regardless of the sensor size
| and focal length you used to achieve this.
|
| The reason different focal lengths are imagined to produce
| different perspectives is because, implicitly, you need to
| stand a different distance from the subject to frame the same
| image at different focal lengths, and it's this difference in
| camera position that causes the change in perspective.
| wilsonjholmes wrote:
| 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.
| avalys wrote:
| > To really match the experience of being there, you need an
| ultrawide lens to capture the full human field of view. The 40
| degree field of view of a nifty fifty is like looking through a
| narrow doggy cone of shame.
|
| This entirely depends on the size and perspective from which
| your photos are viewed. If you're taking photos that will be
| printed in 8 foot posters to be hung on a wall and viewed
| standing right in front of them - yes, a wide-angle lens with
| 90-degree or higher FOV will resemble the perspective you see
| through your eye.
|
| However, most people view photographs at smaller scale - on
| their computer screen, their phone, (long ago) in index-card-
| sized prints, or in medium-sized prints they hang on their wall
| in a frame and view from some distance.
|
| If you're looking at a photo on your phone - that kind of is a
| narrow doggy cone of shame, and a photo taken with a 50 mm lens
| and displayed on your phone will still resemble the same
| perspective you'd see viewing that scene with your eye.
| ISL wrote:
| If pointing someone to a single "normal" lens as a prime, I'd
| point them to a 40mm, not a 50.
|
| When I work with a 50 (which I very much enjoy; used one
| yesterday), I find that it is tighter in composition than my
| normal field of view. The 40 much-better matches my own
| perception and experience. The 50 is a more-careful tool.
|
| 35 is a little wide for me (but perfect for human/photojournalism
| work). If you want to try out a 40, there are great pancake
| lenses out there at relatively low cost. The Canon 40mm STM
| (recently discontinued) and Fuji 27mm are the smallest lenses
| made by their manufacturers -- cheap, sharp, fast, flexible.
|
| Edit to add: For the specific case of environmental portraiture
| of kids, I'd probably trend toward a 35 and perhaps even a 28
| (the focal length-equivalent on the Google Pixel 3a and 4a and
| the Q/Q2). The perspective with which we perceive the experience
| of being a kid is a close and intimate one.
| SECProto wrote:
| > If pointing someone to a single "normal" lens as a prime, I'd
| point them to a 40mm, not a 50.
|
| The article does have a section on exactly the issue (FOV) you
| note - it identifies that the 50mm lens is not the same with
| modern cameras (which have smaller sensors than 35mm film
| cameras), and recommends a 35mm lens for these cameras.
| Personally, I have a 35mm prime lens and quite like it, and I
| think it did help me improve my skills when I can't just zoom
| to get what I want in frame.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _it identifies that the 50mm lens is not the same with
| modern cameras (which have smaller sensors than 35mm film
| cameras), and recommends a 35mm lens for these cameras_
|
| That's a different thing, which is about the "crop factor".
|
| Modern APS-C digital cameras have smaller sesnors, with a 1.5
| crop factor and will need a 35mm lens to get 50mm angle of
| view. This is not needed for modern full-frame digital
| cameras, which can use a 50mm to get 50mm angle of view just
| like old film cameras.
|
| The article in that section just tells people to get a 35mm
| for modern (APS-C crop factor) cameras, because that's what
| gives the 50mm effective angle of view on those.
|
| This issue is orthogonal to the parent's suggestion for 40mm.
|
| To put it in different terms, the article in that section is
| concerned with "what lens you need on a modern crop factor
| camera to get 50mm effective angle of view - hence the
| suggestion for a 35mm physical lens).
|
| Whereas the parent is concened with the actual effective
| angle of view you get, and suggests 40mm effective angle of
| view is better than 40mm effective angle of view.
|
| To get such 40mm effective a.o.v, you need a 40mm lens on a
| film camera or a full-frame digital, and a 27mm lens on a
| APS-C digital (the kind of cameras the article has in mind
| when it says that "modern cameras have smaller lensors).
| SECProto wrote:
| I think the difference between your comment and mine is I
| assumed the parent commenter is complaining about 50mm FOV
| being too tight on a APS-C sensor, and you've assumed
| they're complaining that 50mm is too tight on a full frame
| sensor. Either could be right.
|
| But I think we've all gotten a little lost in the weeds, as
| the original article was recommending it not specifically
| because of focal length, but also because of lens speed
| compared to the 18-80mm zoom lenses now common on DSLRs.
| dheera wrote:
| Also worth noting that with mirrorless cameras, large-
| aperture 35mm full frame lenses can be made much more compact
| than their SLR counterparts, which need retrofocusing design.
|
| On a mirrorless full-frame camera a 35/1.2 or 35/1.4 makes a
| fantastic, portable, all-around landscape and environmental
| portrait lens. Not so true for a 35/1.4 DSLR lens.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| There are two issues here. One is just the usual crop factor
| stuff. Photographers seem to have real problems dealing with
| this (probably thanks to the original sin of some marketer
| somewhere), but they have always and will always suffer from
| that. If you quote focal lengths in "mmeq" (35mm film frame
| equivalent focal length) then this problem goes into the
| background and stays there, out of focus, until the next
| thread of people talking past each other on a photography
| forum.
|
| The second issue is that the normal lens focal length for a
| 35mm film frame, by the most common definition, is actually
| 43mm. There are, of course, other definitions.
| https://medium.com/ice-cream-geometry/what-is-a-normal-
| lens-... seems like a good discussion but I admit to having
| just skimmed it. So neither 35mm nor 50mm is particularly
| great. My X100V has a 35mmeq prime lens and I often find
| myself wishing it was a little narrower. (Though of course I
| might be saying the opposite if it were actually 50mmeq....)
| ISL wrote:
| 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
| with that 40mm-equivalent model. Less versatile, but the
| images that do hit will resonate with me more.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _If Fuji ever makes an X100 with a 50mm-equivalent lens
| (probably a 35mm f /2), they'll sell a boatload._
|
| Why would they? 35mm is much more versatile and better
| for family, travel, and street photography, which is what
| those cameras are used for.
| m348e912 wrote:
| I've spent some time with a full frame Canon SLR with a
| few different fixed focal length lenses. (35,50,&85mm).
| My favorite lens is the Zeiss Distagon 35mm/1.4 even
| though it doesn't have autofocus. That being said, I have
| moved to the Fujifilm x100v and I'm happy with the
| results.
| nop_slide wrote:
| They're already having trouble cranking out enough X100V
| models
| basicplus2 wrote:
| "Human normal" is actually 47.5mm
| js2 wrote:
| I used to really like shooting with an 85mm. Oh look, Adobe has
| an article on it:
|
| https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/hub/guides/t...
| azhenley wrote:
| My favorite normal lens is a Helios 44m-2 58mm f2. It is an old
| Russian knock off that produces a swirly background and glow
| effect. I bought two on eBay 8 years ago for maybe $30 each and
| connect it to my mirrorless body with a $9 adapter.
| graycat wrote:
| I have a sack full of just gorgeous Nikon lenses and camera
| 'backs'. But the backs are all _single lens reflex_ for 35 mm
| film. I have nothing that uses CCDs (charge coupled devices,
| solid state, electronic photon captures).
|
| But the lenses are just gorgeous.
|
| Is there any way I can get a modern camera _back_ , electronic,
| with a CCD or some such photon capture means, etc. that will let
| me exploit my old lenses, including, right, a just gorgeous 50 mm
| lens, a 108 mm, a 200 mm, etc.? So, the modern camera back need
| not have a mirror and, instead, show in the view finder what it
| sees via its CCD sensors.
| coldtea wrote:
| I think 35mm is even better, as it's more versatile in both wide
| and close scenarios (and 40mm is closer to actual human angle of
| view than 50mm).
| Wistar wrote:
| My go to 50 is an odd, but extremely (razor) sharp, Canon 50mm
| f/2.5 compact macro. Sadly, it is no longer made. AF is slow and
| loud and prone to repeatedly hunting and missing focus but the
| images it makes, particularly portraits, are really good. On
| full-frame, it does have some loss of sharpness at the edges but
| on a 1.6 crop sensor camera it is simply great.
| combatentropy wrote:
| This article was actually published more than 20 years ago,
| https://web.archive.org/web/20020603153119/http://vothphoto....
|
| Some of its advice is timeless, but its context is back when your
| phone did not take great pictures. Instead, most people carried
| around no camera at all, and events went undocumented. Then,
| among people who decided they wanted to take pictures of wherever
| they were going, they bought point-and-shoots, which did not let
| you change the lens. Then, for those wanted to get serious, there
| were entry-level DSLRs, which often were sold with a bag and a
| kit lens, and for the vast majority of these owners, the thought
| of buying another lens seldom crossed their minds.
|
| In short, this article is meant to expose the problem to people
| who did not even know they had a problem, and to offer a solution
| that was last thing they would have guessed.
|
| (I don't think the author meant to mislead us about the original
| date of publication. It looks like he recently moved everything
| to Wordpress and may not be savvy enough to fix the date.)
| hellisothers wrote:
| Arguably your phone still doesn't take great pictures in the
| situation the author is describing: indoors, medium to low
| light. In this situation the advice is still timeless, a camera
| with a 50mm ~f1.4 can create a truly great photo (skills
| outstanding), while the best phone will still produce a "good"
| photo.
| yakubin wrote:
| I have an iPhone 13 Mini and in those conditions it will
| never take even a good photo. To make anything even half-
| decent excellent light is needed. When I look online at those
| articles-ads about phones being great at photography now they
| use a combination of great light and a boatload of RAW
| editing.
|
| Plus you need to mind that it's the standard problem of
| people saying they don't hear the fans of their computer,
| don't see the tearing in X, and finally don't see the loads
| of noise and loss of sharpness in phone photos. Discussing
| those things is basically futile.
|
| As a side note, a touch screen is never going to be able to
| compete with the comfort of physical buttons on my DSLR.
| sunsunsunsun wrote:
| The biggest difference is that most phone cameras are still
| far too wide, they are just terrible for portraits. A few
| cameras have 50mm equivalent zoom lenses but most seems to go
| wide+ultrawide.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| > As your spouse proudly holds the baby up you raise the camera
| to your eye.
|
| How did you just happen to have the camera with the right lense
| right at the moment? For truly spur of the moment, have to use
| whatever you have at hand and not worry about tech, usually a
| cell phone.
|
| > The viewfinder seems a little dim in the room light
|
| On the other hand if you have a little more time, just click live
| button and tap viewscreen to focus (or get a camera with
| electronic viewfinder that brightens things up for you, though
| good ones are expensive). In time sensitive situations, larger F
| stop is your friend because your main subject is likely to be
| reasonably focused. Might get noise from high ISO, but these days
| noise removal / shadow brightening is pretty powerful in post-
| processing providing you shoot RAW.
|
| > There is a difference of approximately 3.5 stops between f/1.8,
| the typical maximum aperture for an entry-level 50mm lens, and
| f/5.6, the typical maximum aperture at the portrait end of a
| "consumer" zoom. This is a huge difference in practice.
|
| I love a couple of old manual lenses I have, but these require
| careful scene planning to ensure focus is on the correct thing
| and background is far away to be properly blurred, the opposite
| of "kid is smiling" situation in the article. For those, I keep
| 18-135 lens on by default so I can shoot a large group of friends
| from short distance or a bird on the tree at short notice.
| hef19898 wrote:
| A 50 mm is one of my special occasion lenses, the others being
| a 80-200 and a 300, the latter often combined with a TC. The 50
| is great for low light, for street photography and small enough
| to carry with you. Street ohotography because you stand out
| much less with a DSLR without battery grip and a lens as small
| as a 50 mm. Low light, because of f1.8.
|
| The one lense that is on most of the time, especially when
| travelling, is a 24-120.
|
| I still would recommend a 50mm, simply for its convenience, low
| light performance, small size, incredible sharpness, speedy AF
| and beautiful image characteristics from backgrounds to sun
| stars.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| Sure, I can live with a 24mm (38.4mm translated from crop
| sensor) if I know for sure I am going to be indoors or in
| close quarters / shooting large objects. But distance quickly
| becomes an issue, not always possible to access interesting
| areas or walk there in time. So for unknown situations helps
| to have a decent zoom range, even at the expense of having to
| shoot with higher ISO.
| solardev wrote:
| These aren't dead! You can still find a variety of fast 50mm
| lenses, from a cheap f/1.8 for like $150 (which is still way
| better than most kit lenses) to a very nice f/1.4 upgrade at like
| $400 all the way to absurdly expensive ones.
|
| https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/comparisons/premium-50mm-le...
|
| Their primary advantages:
|
| * Amazing "bokeh" -- the quality and look of the background blur
| that modern phones mostly try to emulate using computational
| photography and maybe lidar depth sensing; but the blur effect is
| simulated in software vs being an actual artifact of the lens
| construction and aperture
|
| * Incredibly fast, good for dimly-lit conditions or action
| photography
|
| * Fine-grained control over depth of field makes the subject
| stand out beautifully
|
| * Teaches you to move your body and camera around to find the
| perfect framing, instead of standing still in one place and using
| the zoom. This can often make for more interesting compositions
| and angles.
|
| * Usually much lighter, especially if you go with an APS-C sized
| sensor in a mirrorless
|
| Negatives:
|
| * No zoom means you have to be able to get close to the subject.
| Hard to do with wildlife, some sports, etc.
|
| * One more lens to carry around
|
| --------------
|
| The 50mm is so much fun to shoot. Get one!
| vwoolf wrote:
| I have a Sigma 30mm 1.4 in Fuji X-Mount
| (https://www.sigmaphoto.com/30mm-f1-4-dc-dn-c), which is ~45mm
| full-frame equivalent (FFE), and it's one of the most cost-
| effective lenses in existence, given its quality relative to
| its price.
|
| The downside around the "perfect framing" is that focal length
| will change perspective:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photog...
| (take a head a shoulders portrait of yourself with a 20mm and
| then 85mm lens to see). Almost all professional photographers
| who need to get the shot have moved to zooms for good reason.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Focal length doesn't do anything to perspective. Perspective
| is dependent on the location (distance) relative to subject.
|
| Different focal lengths will make you want to change your
| position, to get the entire subject in frame, or, conversely,
| to get more details. Then you will change your perspective.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Focal length doesn 't do anything to perspective.
| Perspective is dependent on the location (distance)
| relative to subject._
|
| That's a pedantic way to put it, in the sense that someone
| says "it's not the fall that hurts you, it's hitting the
| ground". Sure, but not very usefull. It's the same if you
| add the extra parameter of "changing the position" into the
| matter of focal lens vs perspective.
|
| Another way to see it is that if you stand in the same
| place and point to the same thing, a larger focal length
| will do compress the perspective more.
| macintux wrote:
| > Almost all professional photographers who need to get the
| shot have moved to zooms for good reason.
|
| Nitpick: I imagine you mean telephotos, not zooms.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Absolutely agree, but have to add a small nitpick:
|
| 50mm primes _used_ to be lightweight. The trend is towards
| Sigma Art / Zeiss Milvus/Otus dimensions, and that means much
| better edge sharpness but ~1kg in weight.
| perardi wrote:
| Let me second that.
|
| Besides perhaps the Canon 50mm f/1.8, 50mm lens are _big_
| now. Like a grapefruit on the front of your camera, to the
| extent it kinda obviates the size reduction in mirrorless
| bodies--slimmer body, and a giant lens.
|
| There are reasons for that. If you're buying an
| interchangeable lens camera, you are probably after image
| quality, and the new generation of lenses are phenomenal. I
| am not sure if you'd call this Nikon _cheap_ , but it blows
| away all their previous offerings.
| (https://www.zsystemuser.com/z-mount-lenses/nikkor-
| lenses/nik...)
| avalys wrote:
| You can still buy cheap and light ones, no?
| _ph_ wrote:
| The Leica M 50/1.4 is still around 300g and a _great_ lens.
|
| But indeed, as the sensor resolution of 35mm cameras exceeds
| many classic medium format cameras, the best lenses have
| grown accordingly to serve that resolution. To me, the Leica
| M system stayed mostly true to the 35mm cameras of the film
| age. The other alternative in my eyes is mFT which offers
| great "digital" lenses in the size of small classic 35mm
| lenses.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| This isn't true. Lens which optimize for performance at the
| cost of size are becoming more mainstream. But that isn't to
| say that this is the trend for the market as a whole. We're
| simply seeing more options.
|
| Take Sony for example. They have their large 50 1.2 and 1.4,
| but they also have several small lenses: the insane 55 1.8,
| the 1.8, the 2.5G, and the 2.8 macro.
|
| And you can go smaller still if you go the manual focus only
| route, e.g. the even more impressive CV 50 f2 APO.
| _HMCB_ wrote:
| Yep. The Nikon 50mm 1.8 is such a steal and provides for
| amazing photos.
| petepete wrote:
| 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...
| folkhack wrote:
| 50mm fixed is a mainstay for many, many photographers - even
| professionals. When I started shooting all of my
| teachers/mentors pushed me to get a fast 50mm as a first lens
| due to the versatility and affordability. If you're doing
| _anything_ with portraiture it 's a must-have IMO.
|
| I can't live without mine!
| nkozyra wrote:
| Agreed, there are a number of these that are fast and
| considered high quality.
|
| Canon had/has some great 1.8 50mm (and pancake 40mm) lenses. I
| kept my 50 when I moved to mirrorless and it's long been my go-
| to.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| I love a good prime lens. Took this with a Sony FE 24mm f/1.4
| (https://roambyland.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/08/ss-1-of-1-...).
|
| 50mm is probably too 'in the middle' for my uses, as a 24 +
| 70-200 has really replaced my need for a 50, and the ability add
| in a little compression of the foreground with the zoom is really
| nice. If I had infinite space in my bags I'd have a 50 for sure.
|
| If I was just using one camera I'd still probably want a 24 or 28
| prime (ie: Leica Q2).
| _ph_ wrote:
| On the other side, the neutral way, the 50 renders szenes is
| the appeal and the challenge for the photographer. A wide-angle
| or strong tele lens add a lot to the picture themselves, by
| their extreme angles of view. The 50 does nothing like that,
| puts all the burdon on to the photographer. Yet, a lot of the
| most iconic pictures have been taken by a 50.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd call using a 50 a burden on the
| photographer, I think they're probably a lot more intuitive
| for most photographers. A 50 was the first lens I bought
| during school, and it was widely regarded as the preferred
| lens for photography classes from beginner to advanced. I
| love the 50, I just personally don't have much use for one
| currently.
| ghaff wrote:
| You could historically get pretty fast 50mm lenses with good
| optical quality for relatively little. Not sure of technical
| reasons why 50mm fell into that standard role. If I had to pick
| one standard prime lens it would probably be 35mm.
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