Classic 50mm “Normal” Lens
garyvoth.com
garyvoth.com
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
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The 50mm is so much fun to shoot. Get one!
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.
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...)
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.
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.
Sony has been keeping the mirrorless full-frame lenses quite small. The old Sony 55mm f1.8 (which I count to be in the class of 50 mms) is still sensibly sized (less than 300 grams) although a bit prone to flares but otherwise quite close to Otus class sharpness.
And then there's the Sony's 50mm F1.2 GM halo product which is still less than 800 grams. It seems that they are pushing down the weight at the same time they are improving the image quality.
Sigma's lenses are a lot of cheaper than Sony's GM lenses but they are bigger and heavier in many cases and in some cases they are still are old designs for DSLRs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What will happen then?
> will do compress the perspective more.
Beep! Wrong! That's why I'm pedantic about the topic. Try it yourself with a zoom lens. The right answer is:
"will capture a smaller angle of the same scene."
No perspective change. Ignoring details coming from resolution, you might as well crop the picture.
Nitpick: I imagine you mean telephotos, not zooms.
A telephoto lens isn't the opposite of a wide angle lens, it's a type of design for lenses with long focal lengths, not all long lenses are of telephoto design
[0] https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/nikon-af-nikkor-50mm-f-1-4...
I can't live without mine!
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.
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.
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....)
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.
Why would they? 35mm is much more versatile and better for family, travel, and street photography, which is what those cameras are used for.
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...
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.
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).
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.
50mm on an APS-C is short-telephoto; frequently pleasing for portraits, but less-useful as a single prime. (I still recommend 50mm f/1.8s as a second or third lens for people using APS-C, but not as an only-lens.)
But it's also incredibly expensive. Fantastic glass though, I've rented it a couple times for some shoots
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.
I personally use a duo of 28mm & 50mm. 28mm is great for street photography in city centers, and 50mm is great for slightly zooming in. I'm saving for a 40mm next. After that I'll ponder on a 20mm for landscape and ultra-wide things.
After getting used to sharpness of a good prime, there's no going back to a zoom.
50 mm is good for portraits. If you're doing a lot of portraiture, use a 50 mm as your go to normal lens.
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.
Tell that to Fujifilm's X-Mount 33mm (APS-C so 50mm equiv.) haha -- but man its fantastic glass even if it is $1400 AUD
Though they have their 35mm WR lens thats a third the price, which is super cheap for the glass quality in my opinion. And you can always slap some older 35mm glass on it with adapters, if you don't mind giving up autofocus.
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.)
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.
My point of comparison is my old point-and-shoot. In low light those things always resorted to flash and the results were terrible. Without flash I needed a tripod.
It’s not as good as a good SLR, of course not. But it’s good enough, a fraction of the size, and does iCloud photos automatically. I haven’t used my SLR in over a decade and should have sold it when I could have gotten a decent price for it.
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.
The single-coated version actually has quite good and natural color rendition in the right light, unfortunately the internal reflections are really noticeable with strong sunlight in the frame. I still consider the version with Zeiss coatings good enough for studio work.
Another interesting thing is that the f/1.8 and f/2 versions are both the f/1.8 lens, but the f/2 version has the iris calibrated to be wide open at f/2. Some people prefer the f/2 version because it has less vintage glow wide open while keeping circular bokeh balls.
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.
> 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.
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".
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.
It's not. Especially at f/1.4.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Can you put forth an example of a real world situation that we can discuss?
For me, photography is not about being an expert camera operator, its about efficiency, and how productive I can be to create an image that I have visualized in my head. I care more about the final result than the process. Personally, I am welcoming the new AI/ML based focusing systems which can be trained to automatically put the focusing point on the subject. I don't think I can ever go back to the optical view finder and dslrs.
Cameras these days have over 700 focus points, and some high-end ones have thousands.
When you stop down, more of the frame is in focus - and focus peaking will tell you something is in focus, when it will not be in focus at your desired aperture.
One way to check if your camera behaves this way is to make the aperture smaller and smaller - does the live display darken significantly? If not, then your camera is not adjusting the aperture until you take the shot.
Of course, if using a fully manual lens, this is not an issue.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
¹https://sunbane.com/gary-voth-photography-the-forgotten-lens...
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.
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).
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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). It’s not an automatic win, it’s just an artistic choice.
I just think here that “get closer to your subject to create an emotionally close picture” is a bit reductive, and typical of the kind of advice you’d see on hobbyist forums that fails to really explore what “emotional closeness” means in photographic terms.
> […] you can see it by frequent use of monochrome/sepia coloring that mimics the nostalgic look of old photos […]
I think the article is actually from 2002 and it’s just been updated. The author may have just shot those pictures on B&W film in the first place.
> 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.
That’s important to you. I think Sontag would probably have something to say about the experience of trying to simultaneously (1) be present in the moment and (2) stay vigilant so you can capture the good moments on film. You are trying to participate in your family activities and produce photographic evidence of moments of connectedness that your family experiences. That desire, and your personal style, lead you to prefer wide angle lenses.
The catch is—not everyone takes pictures that way!
I got a new camera with a 50mm f/1.4 long ago, and promptly tested it by shooting two or three rolls of film with my family over a couple hours. If you shoot enough pictures, people may start to ignore the camera, which is what happened. I got the pictures I wanted—which are records of my family looks at home, when they are not posing themselves for a picture.
> If you haven't tried wide-all-the-time, try.
I’ve definitely tried it. The normal lens for one of my cameras got damaged, so I used mostly a wide lens with it for a couple years.
I’ve tried a lot of different equipment combinations, sometimes using rentals or used equipment. Some of my favorite pictures are ones I took of family members with a simple 35mm prime. Some are candids that I took with a 110mm prime and a tripod…
> As to focus, you don't even need to focus many ~25mm lenses if you shoot with moderately closed aperture […]
I have a prosumer DSLR from several years ago. It takes about 150ms to focus and take a picture, from when you press the button. This is fast enough, for sure. If you understand how AF works, and have a camera with a good AF implementation and enough AF sensors, it’s very fast.
> 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 […]
It depends on your budget and which system you are using.
With a high budget, you can go for the “big glass” look, but with a more modest budget, the humble 50mm f/1.8 is available for under $200 and gives excellent bokeh / background separation. The difference is not so big—the 50mm f/1.8 has a 28mm aperture, and a high-end 85mm f/1.4 has a 60mm aperture. That’s about a factor of 2x difference in bokeh, but a 10x difference in price.
It sounds like this is just not your style, but it’s not like any one lens would work for everyone—just like getting a 28mm or 35mm equivalent wouldn’t solve everyone’s problems.
> 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...
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The 50mm f/1.8 Z lens for Nikon is really magical, I love any chance to use it.
A nice alternative are the Voigtländer lenses, which are available or adaptable to modern mirrorless cameras. They tend to be less pricy and quite compact. I personally love my Voigtländer 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.
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.
To get good photos of human subjects you need to use a fast enough shutter speed 1/125 or 1/160. Here a fast lens comes handy in dim light. If you direct the subject and he is posing, then you can get away with 1/15 if you have steady hands, optical stabilization and you are willing to take more shots.
It's important to have a camera with a fast and accurate focusing system and a fast focusing lens.
If the light is scarce, you can use strobes and light modifiers such as soft boxes.
Image quality is a function of exposure which is a function of shutter speed, aperture and scene illumination. The more photons are hitting the sensor, the better.
I have an older Canon AE-1 that I picked up a 50mm however and it's my favourite "go outside and shoot" lenses. Beyond the benefits that the article is citing, it's missing one of the greatest advantages of these lower focal length lenses is being able to have the lens not extend too far from your body. It's a bit dramatic - but you're kind of part of the action instead of a million miles away.
When I started doing photography 40 years ago, 400 ISO was considered crazy fast. I used Velvia 50 ASA most of the time for its amazing colors and depth.
Nowadays with a digital camera, 10 000 or even 12 000 (16 000?) ASA can produce usable pictures, if a little grainy. "AI" post-production tools can add bokeh or even refocus something after the fact.
I too love the 50mm. But times change.
I'm happy up to iso 32k/50k with my m10 monochrom
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).
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.
So, I did some investigating, and, yes, now there is a theme in both still photography and movie making: Don't use any film. Instead, detect the photons with an electronic sensor, i.e., a thin little rectangle of CCDs (charge coupled devices). And for what used to be a view finder, just use the data from the sensor.
So, these are all digital cameras (camera backs), that is, use an electronic sensor and use no film.
Now a big example of this theme is the smart phone, either iPhone from Apple or an Android phone.
It's possible to make movies with a smart phone. But now an example of a high end camera for movie making is from a company Red (this investigation today was the first I ever heard of it), and one of their cameras can cost $30,000. Apparently compared with a smart phone, a Red video camera can have more pixels in the sensor, more dynamic range, and a higher frame rate.
And, yes, there are digital camera backs by Nikon, some of the other, old still image camera makers, and even Sony as I recall relatively new to cameras.
For my question about my old Nikon lenses: The old lenses were designed to work with the famous SLR (single lens reflex) Nikon F camera of 1959. The SLR meant that for the view finder, a mirror moved down, behind the lens, and in front of the film, and kicked the image up to a prism and into the view finder. So, this way the view finder showed essentially exactly what the film would see when a picture was shot at which time the mirror pivoted up and out of the way of the light to the film and a shutter over the film moved and exposed the film.
So, the many lenses for the Nikon F camera were called F series lenses. Well, my collection of Nikon lenses are all Nikon F series.
Now Nikon has some digital camera backs that can still use F series lenses. These cameras are called FX or full frame cameras, and, yes, the sensor is about the same size, width and height in millimeters, as old 35 mm film.
Some of these are SLR, that is, have a mirror. The Nikon D650 is an example.
But Nikon also has a new series of digital camera backs with, right, no mirror, called their Z series. These are also full frame and can use F series lenses but to do so need a tube between the back of the lens and front of the camera back.
So, to use my old Nikon lenses with a digital camera, I could buy a D650 digital SLR camera back or a Z series camera back with an adapter tube.
The sensors commonly have either ~24 million pixels or ~48 million pixels. And there is some question about the dynamic range of the pixels.
It appears that there is an engineering problem of handling the data rates of 48 million pixels per frame, with a lot of dynamic range (bits) per pixels, at a high frame rate, say, 60 or 120 frames per second for slow motion.
Another theme for these digital still cameras is to be able to take enough frames (exposures) per second to become essentially movie cameras. It appears that this engineering problem is slowing progress of these former still image cameras to being good movie cameras.
It appears that the Nikon Z series camera backs have little or no traditional optics, that is, lenses, mirrors, or prisms, and, instead, are all electronic or nearly so. E.g., the view finder is replaced by a small video screen.
Well, IMHO, any such all electronic device is highly vulnerable to rapidly falling prices. So, I would guess that the Z series prices will have to fall.
Soooo, if I get a digital camera back that will accept my F series lenses, I should go for a cheap one; for something more capable I should wait until prices come way down.
Shooting indoors is unfixable because there isn’t full spectrum light; you’ll have to make up some of the missing colors eventually.
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.
Title should be updated with the original year of publication (2002)
The cheapest Canon 50mm, EF50mm f/1.8 II, is affectionately called "plastic fantastic" or "nifty fifty" and is super cheap.
Of course a good photographer will tell you great photographs have little to do with the camera/lens and everything to do with lighting, framing, subject etc but still...
50mm lenses design didn't change much for decades because it was already very very good and still is very good
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).
I like it a lot.
https://www.35mmc.com/10/02/2022/appreciating-what-you-alrea...
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
It's not the same effect, far from it. It's different focal length, that will render different image.
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.
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.
My widest lens is 12mm (M4/3), and I find it's often insufficient for capturing the entire view that I would like (in street/building-scape situations), so I'll switch to the 0.6X ultrawide lens on my Pixel 5, which has a 107° field of view. At that point you can capture the entirety of, say, a building, just from the opposite corner of the intersection.