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Perspective
If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the
distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? |
#2
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Perspective
"N" wrote: If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? Nothing. It's a hideous focal length: it's too short for isolating the subject and it's too long to show the space and context the subject exists in. It became "normal" by default. In the day of fixed lens cameras. 110mm on 6x9, 75 or 80mm on 6x6, or 50mm on 35mm have the property that they are the shortest (widest) lens that can be made with a simple lens design (although they are retrofocus on an SLR). Anything wider would require more expensive optics and anything longer would make a larger and less useful for snapshots camera. A 50mm lens on a 6x6 or 6x7 camera, on the other hand, is a lovely focal length. David J. Littleboy Tokyo, Japan |
#3
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Perspective
N wrote:
If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? The fact that a lens with 50mm focal length on a regular 35mm film has approximately the same angle of view as the normal human vision. jue |
#4
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Perspective
"Jürgen Exner" wrote in message news:Hegpi.640$zJ4.435@trndny03... N wrote: If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? The fact that a lens with 50mm focal length on a regular 35mm film has approximately the same angle of view as the normal human vision. jue Does your eye have an angle of view of 46 degrees? Mine is certainly wider than that. |
#5
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Perspective
N wrote:
"Jürgen Exner" wrote in message news:Hegpi.640$zJ4.435@trndny03... N wrote: If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? The fact that a lens with 50mm focal length on a regular 35mm film has approximately the same angle of view as the normal human vision. Does your eye have an angle of view of 46 degrees? Mine is certainly wider than that. Certainly. But you don't really 'see' with your peripheral vision. The area that you _conciously_ see and focus on is approximately equivalent to the 50mm angle of view. jue |
#6
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Perspective
In article
, N writes If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? Several assumptions; you use it on a 35mm full frame camera, you make a print from the full frame, you view the print at the same distance as its diagonal. If you do all three things then the angle between subjects in the photograph should be the same as in the original scene. It has noting to do with the angle of view of the human eye, which is either much less if you only consider the fovea, or much more if you understand how human vision works. It also has nothing to do with the ease of manufacturing the lens, otherwise sub-miniature (small sensor) and large format cameras would all use 50mm lenses. Although the normal for 35mm full frame should be 43mm, which makes the 'correct' viewing distance for a frame taken with a 50mm lens 1.15 times the diagonal. Why 50 was adopted instead of 43 is a question for more research; perhaps marketing and being able to describe it as a two inch lens, but this is surmise on my part. -- Ian G8ILZ There are always two people in every pictu the photographer and the viewer. ~Ansel Adams |
#7
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Perspective
Jürgen Exner wrote:
N wrote: "Jürgen Exner" wrote in message news:Hegpi.640$zJ4.435@trndny03... N wrote: If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? The fact that a lens with 50mm focal length on a regular 35mm film has approximately the same angle of view as the normal human vision. Does your eye have an angle of view of 46 degrees? Mine is certainly wider than that. Certainly. But you don't really 'see' with your peripheral vision. The area that you _conciously_ see and focus on is approximately equivalent to the 50mm angle of view. No it's not. The fovea centralis FOV is about 2 degrees, so what you focus on clearly is much less than 50mm "equivalent". As pointed out further up the thread, that FOV is boring anyway. If you look at interesting photos in most galleries, you'll typically find that the FOV assumed to have been used in the photos was much longer - or much shorter than "normal" focal lengths. Wedding and other snapshot artists won't agree, it's subjective, and YMMV. |
#8
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Perspective
"frederick" wrote: Certainly. But you don't really 'see' with your peripheral vision. The area that you _conciously_ see and focus on is approximately equivalent to the 50mm angle of view. No it's not. The fovea centralis FOV is about 2 degrees, so what you focus on clearly is much less than 50mm "equivalent". And one's peripheral vision is way wider than 50mm equivalent: it's more like 20mm or wider. I'm finding that (with care, lots of care) even 12mm (on FF) can feel about right. As pointed out further up the thread, that FOV is boring anyway. If you look at interesting photos in most galleries, you'll typically find that the FOV assumed to have been used in the photos was much longer - or much shorter than "normal" focal lengths. Wedding and other snapshot artists won't agree, it's subjective, and YMMV. Still, a lot of great photos have been taken with the 50mm FOV. Here's a photo I'm fond of (inexplicably, you'll probably find), although it's taken with a 75mm lens (on 6x6 with an early 1950's Rolleiflex). http://www.pbase.com/davidjl/image/37431099/large David J. Littleboy Tokyo, Japan |
#9
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Perspective
Prometheus wrote:
In article , N writes If perspective has nothing to do with focal length and only relates to the distance between the subject and camera, what makes a 50mm lens normal? Several assumptions; you use it on a 35mm full frame camera, you make a print from the full frame, you view the print at the same distance as its diagonal. If you do all three things then the angle between subjects in the photograph should be the same as in the original scene. It has noting to do with the angle of view of the human eye, which is either much less if you only consider the fovea, or much more if you understand how human vision works. It also has nothing to do with the ease of manufacturing the lens, otherwise sub-miniature (small sensor) and large format cameras would all use 50mm lenses. Although the normal for 35mm full frame should be 43mm, which makes the 'correct' viewing distance for a frame taken with a 50mm lens 1.15 times the diagonal. Why 50 was adopted instead of 43 is a question for more research; perhaps marketing and being able to describe it as a two inch lens, but this is surmise on my part. 50mm is "normal" for 35mm film cameras because when Oskar Barnack was designing the original Leica, he had some spare 2" microscope lenses lying about, and they seemed to work well enough with the new frame format. As you say, the traditional rule of thumb of a normal lens being of a focal length equivalent to the diagonal of the frame would suggest 43mm as being the best choice, but I've seen anything from 40 to 60mm being used. Personally, I find I use my 28mm more than anything else on 35mm, and the 28mm equivalent setting most often on my digital ultrazoom bridge, but I do tend to shoot more landscapes than anything else. |
#10
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Perspective
Alex Monro wrote:
[] Personally, I find I use my 28mm more than anything else on 35mm, and the 28mm equivalent setting most often on my digital ultrazoom bridge, but I do tend to shoot more landscapes than anything else. I found that with my Nikon 5700, I was using the widest angle (35mm IIRC) a lot of the time, and therefore I decided to get the 24-85mm Nikon 8400. Trouble is that I like telephoto as well. There's a handy little program here (free) which will show you what focal lengths you are using in a set of images: http://www.cpr.demon.nl/prog_plotf.html Cheers, David |
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