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Common focal lengths . . .
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:23 am    Post subject: Common focal lengths . . . Reply with quote
Something I was noticing and that is certain lens sizes are very common - one always sees them out there.

Of course the 50mm is common as that is the standard lens.
I've also noticed 135 mm also common - we have a thread about people's fav 135, or the question how many 135mm lenses do you need?
I now find my self with 3 lenses very similar 75mm-250mm, 80-210mm and a 70-210 and I've seen large numbers of lenses in this range.

Now I realize we have multiples due to picture quality/character and/or speed of lens etc. Also that application counts too . . .

Any thoughts on why this is?


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Certain lenghts were common, because they were the best compromise between performance and complexity of design (and thus price).
The reason why you often find older 55mm lenses (instead of 50mm) is that given the glass of those times, it was easier to calculate a little longer normal lens without a retro-focus design.

135mm were a very good compromise between speed, tele effect and controllable abberations of longer teles.

35mm lenses were the first wide angle lenses that manufacturers were able to built at "reasonable" costs.

Once they got "better" sorts of glass, other lenses became possible.

Thus the basic set used to be 35mm, 50 (55) mm and 135mm.

For fixed lenses you often find focal lengths between 38 and 45mm, because these lenses were 1. versatile to use ("normal" FoV to light WA), 2. rather easy to built (no mirror, so no retro-focus needed) and 3. they did not have to be too fast, faster than f2.8 is rather rare.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
Certain lenghts were common, because they were the best compromise between performance and complexity of design (and thus price).
The reason why you often find older 55mm lenses (instead of 50mm) is that given the glass of those times, it was easier to calculate a little longer normal lens without a retro-focus design.

135mm were a very good compromise between speed, tele effect and controllable abberations of longer teles.

35mm lenses were the first wide angle lenses that manufacturers were able to built at "reasonable" costs.

Once they got "better" sorts of glass, other lenses became possible.

Thus the basic set used to be 35mm, 50 (55) mm and 135mm.

...


I agree - then 28's and 200's became popular until zooms really took off where 28-70/or 35-70 paired with a 70-210/80-200 became the standard.

Short portrait lens 85's and 100/105's were reasonably popular but more with the serious amateur and professional rather than the average user.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
...

Thus the basic set used to be 35mm, 50 (55) mm and 135mm.

...



Yes, these three are the most used (by me) focal lenghts Very Happy ( CZJ Flek.35, Pentacon 50 and Porst 135 ) on M42 sistem and 28, 50 and a 70-210 zoom for the K Pentax film sistem.
I'm very diasappointed because I don't use usually anything between 60/65 and 100/120 and the 50mm lens becames 75mm on dSLR Sad so its not pretty usefull. The same for 28mm which becames 42mm , not wide enough for wide and not normal enough Evil or Very Mad
I hope I'll afford one day a FF dSLR (Pentax or Canon).
This full frame issue is another thing why I shoot on film beside others.

PS. But this way I use the Flek 35mm as normal 52mm lens and the Jupiter-9 85mm as tele (125mm). Still, I would like to see, what I shoot, through the viewfinder in the same dimension like in reality.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Shooting with a crop camera has a positive side, that one needs less money to obtain the same quality level. This because many of the differences between the expensive lenses and the cheap ones, takes place in the edges of the glass, while the central "sweet spot" often gives similar results even with lenses separated by a big price difference.
In other words, crop format is a big equalizer.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
montecarlo wrote:
LucisPictor wrote:
...

Thus the basic set used to be 35mm, 50 (55) mm and 135mm.

...



...
I'm very diasappointed because I don't use usually anything between 60/65 and 100/120 and the 50mm lens becames 75mm on dSLR Sad so its not pretty usefull. The same for 28mm which becames 42mm , not wide enough for wide and not normal enough Evil or Very Mad
...


Interesting! I find that I use my 50mm far more now that it's a useful short tele on DX, and 28mm makes a nicer 'normal' view on DX than a 50mm does on Full-frame.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Richard_D wrote:
montecarlo wrote:
...


...
I'm very diasappointed because I don't use usually anything between 60/65 and 100/120 and the 50mm lens becames 75mm on dSLR Sad so its not pretty USELESS. ...
...


Interesting! I find that I use my 50mm far more now that it's a useful short tele on DX, and 28mm makes a nicer 'normal' view on DX than a 50mm does on Full-frame.

My mistake but you understood what I want it to say. Sorry again.
I expect to see through the viewfinder when using a 50mm lens exactly what I see without watching through it and at the same (life) size (if I use a 35mm lens the field of view will be the same but the size will be smaller, due to the cropping factor). But, what can I do, I use what I have and adapt to the situation (may be using both film -FF and APS makes this harder).


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
Shooting with a crop camera has a positive side, that one needs less money to obtain the same quality level. This because many of the differences between the expensive lenses and the cheap ones, takes place in the edges of the glass, while the central "sweet spot" often gives similar results even with lenses separated by a big price difference.
In other words, crop format is a big equalizer.


Yes , thats true but also wide MF lenses can be harder to find (the Oly users are less lucky). Often I saw pretty big price differences between "no name" 24mm lens and 28mm (which are the most cheap lenses together with some 135mm ones) lens may be because the resulting 36mm vs 42mm focal lengh on APS-C dSLR.


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
montecarlo wrote:

(the Oly users are less lucky).


Maybe, or maybe not, because their camera will use even less of the glass, only the very central part, which means ideal or next-to-ideal performance with almost all lenses.
It means:

- practically all lenses become sharp lenses, because shooting with a 4/3 is like to always shoot at f/8 or similar with a full frame camera (except for the DOF of course)

- zero vignetting even with bad vignetting lenses

- effective distortions much reduced, because lens distortions become most apparent at the edges

So there is a lot of optical advantages to such choice.
Of course you will have to invest in a AF superwide to cover the focal range that no MF lenses will cover (you would need a 10mm lens to obtain a 20mm angle of view on a 4/3 and as far as I know there is no rectilinear 10mm manual focus lens).


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I am pretty happy with a crop cam. As Orio said, most lenses turn into really good ones. Wink
And a "real" wide angle lens is very expensive in MF (you need some real 17 or 18mm). And even then I do not get what they call "extreme wide angel". So I enjoy my moderately wide, normal or tele MFs and use a Tokina 12-24 (AF) that gives me excellent results for the super wide shots.
You know that I am not dogmatic as fas as MF is concerned. I love MF lenses but I use whatever suits me best.

That's why I do not feel the urge to get a fullframe, not even "someday"...
But I would like to have a 40D. Wink
(I just heard that I will probably get the tax refund in two weeks time. Well, let's hope it is a nice one. That would mean: "Hello 40D!")


PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Common lens is highly depend from your interest ... for me common focal length is 200mm, because I mostly shoot in zoo animals. For Carsten some wide angle lens because he shoot in cities. I always bring following focal lengths 50,135mm,200mm, 300mm.


PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
Common lens is highly depend from your interest ... for me common focal length is 200mm, because I mostly shoot in zoo animals. For Carsten some wide angle lens because he shoot in cities. I always bring following focal lengths 50,135mm,200mm, 300mm.


No I understand why you have chosen the Olympus system to use the MF lenses. For me it wouldn't work.

In my case, on my EOS 30D, I use a lot the 29 (landscape), the 50 (portraits) and the 135 (details). I plan in the future to switch to a 5D, so everything will have to change.
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