why do a lot of photographers have 50mm lens?

[sebastiansong]

I got it due to peer pressure ... almost everyone else has one, so ... :bsmilie:

Never bow to peer pressure

if you are comfortable with zooms, use a zoom... if you wonder how a 50mm is like, just loan one for a weekend. You don need to buy a lens in order to test it.

as for why some choose a particular lens.. its just preference and intention since most choose the lens to give them the perspective they wish to achieve. In other words they have the photo in mind EVEN before they press the shutter.

 

[AJ23]

Oh no! I am going to BUY BUY BUY 50mm f/1.8 soon !!! :sweat:

Don't buy it because it's cheap. Buy if u need it, else it will be just another item in the dry cabinet.

 

[kross]

Oh no! I am going to BUY BUY BUY 50mm f/1.8 soon !!! :sweat:

buy becos u need....not u want... ;p

 

[ParkertR]

lol! ur crazy about getting ur 50mm... im crazy about getting my 50-500 BIGMA!!! hehehe unless anyone else have recommendations... then i'll sell my 200-400! ahhhh!!! hehehehe sorry i OT ah ehhehe

 

[photogene]

Never bow to peer pressure

if you are comfortable with zooms, use a zoom... if you wonder how a 50mm is like, just loan one for a weekend. You don need to buy a lens in order to test it.

as for why some choose a particular lens.. its just preference and intention since most choose the lens to give them the perspective they wish to achieve. In other words they have the photo in mind EVEN before they press the shutter.

This is a sensible advice. Seen too many newbies just buy this lens blindly not knowing why they want it for.

 

[ParkertR]

what photogene says is so true... i've seen people buy it cuz everyone has it and then sell it in 'mint condition'...

 

[icarus]

No doubt the 50/1.8 is dirt cheap, but buy only when u NEED it. $170 is still money.

 

[ParkertR]

yep... do consider your actions before u take the $170 plunge... $170 can get u man eggs... a few good meals out with ur gf/wife at a nice eating place... lotsa miles on ur car, 1/2 an SB600... so much~ and $170 extra in your pocket when u NEED the money.

 

[Xaler]

I carry 50mm around as a backup, it's very light. Nobody knows what will happen (touch wood!) during trips. Also, it's got a very wide aperture, handy at night.

 

[Feinwerkbau]

Here's a different opinion...

The 'Standard' 50mm lens you find yesterday, today, and tomorrow, is, in my opinion, one of the HIGHEST value for money lenses any photographer could find.

Why?

The Cons:

1) It is not a zoom.

2) It does not offer the versatility of a zoom.

3) It forces a photographer to carry one, or more additional lenses (if a photographer uses more primes than zooms).

Now, these may not necessarily be 'cons'...



NOW...and I'm sure some of you have been waiting to know...

A prime standard 50mm is one of the best pieces of fastest lenses any photographer could ever buy! For so little money, what you get is an exquisitely designed, and relatively cheap to produce lens of outstanding optical quality that would surpass ANY zoom lens at any time (optically speaking).

For those who want to know a little more about the standard 50mm, did you know that it was birthed as a lens designed by Zeiss in the late 1800's, christened the:

'PLANAR'


1896
Paul Rudolph
Zeiss Designed by Dr. Paul Rudolph in 1896 based on the double Gauss design (in 1817, C F Gauss described a telescope objective consisting of a pair of meniscus shaped elements, one positive, and one negative.)

The design was 4 groups of 6 elements, and a flat field design. Symmetrical optical configuration producing low spherical aberration and astigmatism. The normal wide airspace separating the positive and negative elements in the double gauss design made a large amount of spherical aberration.

Rudolph thickened the negative elements and reduced the airspace as much as possible, which corrected the spherical aberration and the sagittal/ tangential astigmatic aberration.

Rudolph also inserted a "buried surface" into the thick negative elements of a cemented interface separating two type of glass having the same refractive index, but different dispersive powers.

Not widely used until coating processes were available, due to light loss from the large number of transmission surfaces causing very low contrast. Due to it's complexity and high number of transmission surfaces, it really did not come into it's own until coating was developed.

The planar was used as a base for lens derivatives, though in asymmetric form.

Almost all the high-aperture lenses supplied on Japanese cameras are modification on the Planar.

Some well know variants of six element Double Gauss designs are:

Agfa: Soligon
Angenieux: S-type
Astro: Kino, Tachar
Bausch & Lomb: Aminar, baltar, Raytar
Boyer: Saphir
Dallmeyer: Super Six
Enna: Annaston
Isco: Westagon
Kinoptik: Apochromat, Fulgior
Kodak: Ektar, Aero Ektar
Leitz: Elcan, f/1.2Noktilux, Sumarrit, Summar, Summitar, Summicron, Dygon
Meyer: Domiron
Rodenstock: Heligon
Ross: Xtralux
Schneider: f/2 Xenon, Xenogon
Steinheil: Quinon
Taylor-Hobson: Amotal, Ivotal, Kinic, Opic Panchrotal, Speed Panchro
Wollensak: Raptar
Wray: Copying Lens
Zeiss: Biotar, Flexon


However, bear in mind that in the past, so many much greater masters in all areas of photography ranging from portrait artists, street photographers and even super high-stress, time is of the essence if one were to get the shot ... and still survive - war photographers

ALL of them used fixed focal length primes.

My all time favourites are Capa and Bresson.

While Capa (war photographer and founder of Magnum), out of necessity, had several bodies fitted with different lenses, Bresson so masterly captured the essence of life itself, in what he defined as 'the decisive moment' using nothing more than a 50mm standard lens.

YES, using fixed focal primes involves more work, simply because the field of view cannot be changed in the lens itself. A photographer is forced to move in, or out, and to go around a subject.

This is, in itself, a discipline; something I feel is sorely lacking in too many modern photographers overly pampered by too much technology.

Am I a sadist? No.

While I used to shoot 35mm and 120 using an avarage ratio of 80-90 primes and 10-20% zooms, it was the works taken with my primes that were the best - EVER!

I have to confess, I am now spoilt and shoot digital using 90% zooms and 10% primes. Such is the order of life.

However, I do use a modest Standard 50mm f1.8 as appropriate, and it always outperforms my zoom lenses costing many thousand % more.

Further readings:

http://www.panix.com/~zone/photo/czlens.htm

http://www.company7.com/zeiss/history.html

http://www.imx.nl/photosite/leica/technics/optics01/lensdesign01.html

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/history.html

CHEERS!

 

[F5user]

performance wise, the 50's definitely a bang for your buck..

HOWEVER...

as what everybody says.. buy only if u NEED it..

if you're mainly using a digital, and not printing out your pics/sending it for processing, you won't need this..

i use film for a living, and the 50 has earned its worth back 1000 times or even more due to its uncanny ability to give excellent contrast 8x10 and beyond.

currently i'm still using my 50 1.4, and a 50 1.8... but the zeiss 50 1.4 on my RTS is my jem and jewel which i love more than my wife. (hope she don't loggon.)

Great explanation above by Feinbakhau... (that's an air rifle brand right? )

cheers

 

[Paul_Yeo]

no lah. i know i will love this lens ;p

i dun buy things i dun need....eg when a lot of people talked about the 70-200 VR, 500mm, i am not tempted as i am not into that tele lens yet :sticktong

i want to do baby photo, pet photo, kids photo now.... those will be few years later. :embrass:

 

[Winston]

i got mine cos

1) its cheap
2) it has the largest aperature of f/1.8 for its price range (cant afford the f/2.8 lenses) which I can use for nice portaits, though I have to stand so close to the subject for a half-body shot.
3) And i found it useful to carry with me if I do need a lens to "Try on cameras, especially if I am getting a 2nd hand one"


Its like a pistol on a SWAT officer. while his MP5 may be his primary weapon, you can count on his pistol to be loaded and there for him, if his MP5 jams or out of ammo.
(OK bad analogy) :bsmilie:

 

[DarkForce]

but without zoom, don't u find it a bit hard to use? if i want to take a pic ...if the subject not near enough, i have to walk nearer or move backward ....

unlike zoom lens, i can compose while i am standing at a fixed place....

(I sounded lazy huh!)

Hi Paul_Yeo,

Using zoom lens is not lazy lah. Those who see me shoot before will know I keep jumping around using zoom len :bsmilie:

 

[theITguy]

Actually, which lense also no difference, the output is more important. Some may like or swear by 50mm, for me it is 24mm. Is it a myth that the 50mm is optically more sharp or worth it to other lense? Well a picture is priceless anyway....

 

[Ben1223]

I read somewhere that the idea of 50mm being close to normal human field of view being the reason for setting it as the standard lens is a myth. But I forgot the website name.

Normal human field of view is more closer to 17mm.
The explanation was quite good and it made sense. Too bad I didn't took note of the site.

It explained that 50mm became the standard because it was the cheapest lens to produce. And to appeal to a mass market an SLR body should come with at least 1 lens when sold.

Edit:
I think this is it but not sure:
http://www.bythom.com/myths.htm

 

[Winston]

I read somewhere that the idea of 50mm being close to normal human field of view being the reason for setting it as the standard lens is a myth. But I forgot the website name.

Normal human field of view is more closer to 17mm.
The explanation was quite good and it made sense. Too bad I didn't took note of the site.

It explained that 50mm became the standard because it was the cheapest lens to produce. And to appeal to a mass market an SLR body should come with at least 1 lens when sold.

Edit:
I think this is it but not sure:
http://www.bythom.com/myths.htm

Hmm I'm not sure too but its pretty easy to find out.
Look (w/o moving ur eyeballs) straight ahead, and remember the Extreme left and right images.

standing at the same spot, mount a 50mm lenses on a Film SLR (no FOV), and look thru the viewfinder, if u get the same extreme left and right images thru the viewfinder of the SLR camera with 50mm then I guess its true.

Else..
oh well.

 

[Pablo]

I read somewhere that the idea of 50mm being close to normal human field of view being the reason for setting it as the standard lens is a myth. But I forgot the website name.

Normal human field of view is more closer to 17mm.
The explanation was quite good and it made sense. Too bad I didn't took note of the site.

It explained that 50mm became the standard because it was the cheapest lens to produce. And to appeal to a mass market an SLR body should come with at least 1 lens when sold.

Edit:
I think this is it but not sure:
http://www.bythom.com/myths.htm

Is this the bit you meant ?
It is from the link you gave.

3--A "Normal" Lens is 50mm
One recent photography book I was browsing through repeated the oft-made claim that a 50mm lens most closely matches that which our eyes see, the so-called "normal" lens. The first problem with this, of course, is that everyone's eyes are a little bit different. More to the point, the eye/brain connection includes a number of subtle features, such as peripheral vision and near-constant reorienting and focusing. In general, I find that I "see" about a 24mm-equivalent field of view, with my vision concentrated on the equivalent of anything from a 80mm to 300mm lens (and this range has narrowed as I grow older). (For those that are curious, most human eyes are about 16mm in focal length and the pupil's iris can manage effective apertures of from about f/2 to f/11.)

What most texts are referring to when they anoint "normal" lenses is that the focal length is approximately the diagonal of the image format. That's it, there's no hidden meaning in that definition, and no human connection. One reason why such lenses are useful, however, is that the format diagonal tends to be the focal length that allows large usable apertures coupled with minimum performance compromises. As you make shorter or longer focal length lenses for a format, distortion, coma, chromatic aberration, and field curvature become more and more difficult to control, especially if you want to retain large apertures.

Cheers

 

[Ben1223]

Is this the bit you meant ?
It is from the link you gave.

3--A "Normal" Lens is 50mm
One recent photography book I was browsing through repeated the oft-made claim that a 50mm lens most closely matches that which our eyes see, the so-called "normal" lens. The first problem with this, of course, is that everyone's eyes are a little bit different. More to the point, the eye/brain connection includes a number of subtle features, such as peripheral vision and near-constant reorienting and focusing. In general, I find that I "see" about a 24mm-equivalent field of view, with my vision concentrated on the equivalent of anything from a 80mm to 300mm lens (and this range has narrowed as I grow older). (For those that are curious, most human eyes are about 16mm in focal length and the pupil's iris can manage effective apertures of from about f/2 to f/11.)

What most texts are referring to when they anoint "normal" lenses is that the focal length is approximately the diagonal of the image format. That's it, there's no hidden meaning in that definition, and no human connection. One reason why such lenses are useful, however, is that the format diagonal tends to be the focal length that allows large usable apertures coupled with minimum performance compromises. As you make shorter or longer focal length lenses for a format, distortion, coma, chromatic aberration, and field curvature become more and more difficult to control, especially if you want to retain large apertures.

Cheers

Yup. He has a point. So 'normal' has nothing to do with the human view. More on "the focal length is approximately the diagonal of the image format".

"As you make shorter or longer focal length lenses for a format, distortion, coma, chromatic aberration, and field curvature become more and more difficult to control, especially if you want to retain large apertures"

This would explain why longer or shorter than "normal" would cost more to produce.

 

[Ben1223]

Hmm I'm not sure too but its pretty easy to find out.
Look (w/o moving ur eyeballs) straight ahead, and remember the Extreme left and right images.

standing at the same spot, mount a 50mm lenses on a Film SLR (no FOV), and look thru the viewfinder, if u get the same extreme left and right images thru the viewfinder of the SLR camera with 50mm then I guess its true.

Else..
oh well.

Have you ever tried taking a photo of a group of people inside a room?
You stand a few feet from them estimating that the spot would be ideal for everyone to fit in the frame (as your naked eye perceives it).

But when you raise the camera to your eye and look thru the viewfinder (with 50mm) you find that you have to step back to include everyone in.