50mm lens

[Ai Print]

I started taking photos when I was 9 and a 50mm was all I had until I was in high school. Then I got suckered into the peer pressure that it was a boring lens and I could liven my photos up with a 28 or a 105. So probably until I was about 38 or so, I always relegated my "50" to macro lens duty.

Then I got a Leica M3 and a 50 Summicron and pulled my head out of my rear and 10 years later it is by far one of my most favorite lenses, have it in several iterations. A 35 point of view is pretty much my favorite in all formats but the 50 would certainly be second, it feels like a wide angle telephoto if that makes any sense.

 

[blockend]

I basically take two kinds of photographs, topographic record shots, and street photography. For the first I normally use a 40mm or a 28-80 zoom, increasingly the latter. A zoom helps to remove cars, trees, lamp posts, whatever from the location I'm recording, and absolute image sharpness isn't necessary although at f8 you'd be pushed to tell any difference from a prime lens. Physical restrictions and barriers determine the focal length.

Street photography requires intimacy and people, and it's easier to achieve that with a wide angle lens like a 28mm, and also get depth of field. That said, I can think of great photographers who exclusively used 28, 35 or 50 mm lenses, and consistently made excellent work. It's mostly about getting used to "seeing" like the lens does.

 

[blockend]

I used to love my 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens for my Pentax cameras, for that reason.

I bought a Canon AF film body specifically to use the 40mm 2.8 pancake. It's tiny, sharp, quick focusing, has modern multi-coating and the focal length is very forgiving.

 

[Steve Roberts]

IMHO this question is all about subject matter, personal preference and compromise. I don't think the mathematical 'answers' have any validity. A 50mm f1.4 lens is a reasonable compromise for many subjects a lot of the time. Yet for the kind of subjects I mainly photograph I find that even a 55mm lens is far less useful (as a Pentax owner, I have several of both, largely because they arrived attached to bodies I've bought). However, I guess my ideal 'standard' lens for 35mm work would be a 45mm f1.4 SMC Takumar!
Steve

 

[Jim Jones]

IMHO this question is all about subject matter, personal preference and compromise. . . .

Yes, indeed. Over many decades perhaps half of my photographs have been captured with a 5omm or equivalent lens. However, in various locales and seasons that varies. Now, in the midst of track & field season, a long zoom hasn't left the camera for the last 1000 or 2000 shots. It also works best for scenics in the open countryside here in the Midwest. Indoors or in urban areas, a wide angle may be needed to "get it all in". The 50mm (or somewhat longer) is a fine compromise between price, speed, and image quality.

 

[thuggins]

Barnack tried a 50mm Tessar in the process of developing the Leica prototype (see under Leitz Elmar).

Forget all the other theories, this is the real reason. We all know that the true standard FL for 35mm is between 42mm and 43mm, which is why nearly all Olympus RF's have 42mm or 43mm lenses. But in developing any "new" product there is always a major influence from existing pieces sitting around. Once that old piece is incorporated into the "new" product it becomes the de facto standard. This is why modern railroad tracks are the same distance apart as Roman chariot wheels.


James Burke produced a fascinating series on this phenomenon, called "Connections". It is well worth watching.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I did a search for 50mm, but i mostly find discussions about the different Brand of lens.
My question is Why/How did the 50mm become the "standard" lens that came with a new camera body.?
Thank You

Oscar Barnard recommended it for the Leica as 50 is close to the theoretical normal of 43mm.

 

[cuthbert]

50 mm is standard because if you see through a 50mm lens on a 35mm SLR with 1:1 viewfinder the image is exactly as big as you would see it with your naked eye, if you can take your camera vertically and see with both eyes open to check this out.

Of course the first Leicas had 1:1 viewfinders so that's the reason why Barnack chose that size as standard, if you are using a SLR with smaller magnification like 0.7 or 0.8 you might find a 55m or a 58mm would suit your view better, and the difference in perspective is minimal.

A lot of people consider 35mm or 40mm a better choice because humans have two eyes and the 50mm effectively cover the field of one eye.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I see zero limitation in 50mm lens use as general porpoise lens.
I was born, raised, educated and started to work in USSR. Zenit and FED cameras were made in millions and used by million back then.
I'm also as OP often thinking why 50mm was next to exclusive on millions of those cameras. And the comment above seems to be the answer...

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Each focal length has its own visual perspective, and the 50mm is as useful as any other, and it has its advantages and shortcomings. A 50 brings a subject close, but only sharply depicts close and distance objects at small apertures, which has consequences for shutter speed and image softening. A 28 provides lots of depth of field, but if the subjects are not be distant and remote, the photographer has to move in close. An 80 brings the subject close, but isolates it from its surroundings. A 50 isn't a boring focal length, but it isn't more "realistic" than any other.

focal length has nothing to do with perspective

 

[benjiboy]

Forget all the other theories, this is the real reason. We all know that the true standard FL for 35mm is between 42mm and 43mm, which is why nearly all Olympus RF's have 42mm or 43mm lenses. But in developing any "new" product there is always a major influence from existing pieces sitting around. Once that old piece is incorporated into the "new" product it becomes the de facto standard. This is why modern railroad tracks are the same distance apart as Roman chariot wheels.


James Burke produced a fascinating series on this phenomenon, called "Connections". It is well worth watching.

Only 55% of the Worlds railways are standard gauge.

 

[Alan Gales]

From what I have read on the internet, something like a 40mm or 45mm is close to what your eye sees. The reason that camera manufactures chose 50mm is that it's the cheapest focal length to manufacture

I don't know how true this is but we all know that new 50mm lenses ran cheaper than 35mm lenses.

 

[Dali]

50 mm is standard because if you see through a 50mm lens on a 35mm SLR with 1:1 viewfinder the image is exactly as big as you would see it with your naked eye, if you can take your camera vertically and see with both eyes open to check this out.

Of course the first Leicas had 1:1 viewfinders so that's the reason why Barnack chose that size as standard, if you are using a SLR with smaller magnification like 0.7 or 0.8 you might find a 55m or a 58mm would suit your view better, and the difference in perspective is minimal.

A lot of people consider 35mm or 40mm a better choice because humans have two eyes and the 50mm effectively cover the field of one eye.

+1.

 

[blockend]

focal length has nothing to do with perspective

Ok, substitute viewpoint. Even better, psychological viewpoint on photographer and viewer. Successful photographs always exploit what a focal length is good at, and each focal length is good at seeing in different ways - for a particular film size, obviously.

 

[Alan Johnson]

It's well known that Barnack designed his camera to use cine film and it seems likely he first tried a cine lens, the 50mm f3.5 Kino Tessar so the 50mm traces back to motion picture film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photographic_lens_design

 

[Loren Sattler]

My Nikon 35mm f2.0 is my most used 35mm format lens by far, although lately I have used my standard 50mm more than in the past. With a Mamiya TLR I use the 65mm most which offers a similar perspective as the 35mm lens on the Nikon. I rarely use longer than standard lenses and prefer wide angle. No known reason, probably relates to subject matter the photographer is drawn to.

 

[cooltouch]

The reason why 50mm lenses are so cheap compared to others is merely a matter of the economies of scale. There are so many more of them built than the other focal lengths that production costs have been brought way down. The 50mm lens is often the most highly corrected lens in a photographer's bag, so it isn't merely a matter of the optic being more simple in design.

I've always thought of the 50mm as a "normal" focal length because when I bring the camera up to my eye, there is no difference in magnification or perspective. And it is because of a 50mm's "normalcy" that I find it to be most useful in many situations -- those where I don't want any exaggeration of size or perspective. Plus, if it's a reasonably fast 50mm -- say f/1.4 or faster -- I can often do interesting things in terms of isolating the subject from the background when shooting wide open -- while keeping everything else "normal."

 

[nosmok]

I'm sure the reason that Barnack even had a 50mm lens was because it was (is) the "normal" lens for the 3cm x 4cm on 127 film that was popular at the time. It isn't really very close to the correct diagonal. It was just around, Leitz even supplied a 50mm Elmar to a 127 camera, can't remember which camera.

What I'm really curious about is why everybody always went with 35mm as a "wide" lens, when to my eye 30 or 28 is clearly a better jump in width. Of course, that may be because my first camera was my grand-dad's Zeiss Contina III, which had 30mm, 48mm, and 75mm as the focal lengths.

 

[RobC]

The standard lens focal length for each film format is approximately the diagonal of the film format. And note I said approximately. It has nothing to do with the eye or they eyes focal length or the eyes filed of view.

Using the diagonal of the film format as the standard focal length will give an approximate 40deg field of view. That happens to be a "comfortable" field of view of the human eye but in no technical or physical way is it actually linked since it is far from the same as the human eye.

A little test for you. Put your arms out straight to either side of you with thumbs pointing straight forward and wiggle them. Then focus on a point direct in front of you. In good lighting you will be able to see your thumbs wiggling even if your arms are slightly behind you. In other words human vision has a field of view of greater than 180 degrees.
Now I here you all say, but they are not in focus. Doesn't matter since you can see they are there. And in fact that peripheral vision is extremely important as your brain detects motion around you which affects how you percieve your spatial positioning and reactions to what is happening around you.
Now a second test. Stand two pencils on a table 10 feet in front of you 1 inch apart. Now focus on one them very carefully and without letting your eyes wander to other one, make an assessment of how clerly defined the other one is. It will be far less clear. Only 1 inch away and it is in your peripheral vision. The eye brain combination can only focus clearly on a tiny area on your eyes lens axis.
So any talk of camera lens angles being related to the human eye is garbage. The human eye is approx 15mm focal length but its not fixed as the focal length changes as you focus and the lens shape changes.

Using the diagonal of the film format for the standard focal length is just convenient because it shows us what interests us in the particular direction we are looking towards and what is in close proximity to it. i.e. its immediate surrounds which gives it context

 

[baachitraka]

focal length has nothing to do with perspective

Focal lengths do affect the perspective or do I miss-understood something?

 

[MattKing]

Focal lengths do affect the perspective or do I miss-understood something?

Perspective is determined by one thing only - the position of the camera in relation to the subject.

Field of view is determined by focal length and film size.

The focal length sometimes forces us to walk away or get closer to our subject, in order to include what we want in the photo. That does affect perspective.

 

[RobC]

Focal lengths do affect the perspective or do I miss-understood something?

This is an often made point. Technically if you make one image with say 100mm lens and and another image with 50mm lens from same position of exact same subject and then compare the same area of two prints they will look identical. However, if you move closer with the 50mm lens to get the same subject area on film as with the 100mm lens then they will be different. The difference will be parralax effects because the closer shot with the 50mm lens will obscure some of what is behind closer objects in the subject. As you move closer with the 50mm lens the closer objects in the subject will appear relatively larger than the farther objects did when you used the 100mm lens. This effect is called foreshortening but is linked with parralax. The angles out to the edges of the near objects in the subject will be greater as you move closer with the 50mm lens whereas the angles to farther objects will change by a smaller amount. The effect of foreshortening is often called perspective change. Take your pick. But either way the effect is caused by a change of position and not by a change of focal length.

Having said all that, I can often tell if an image was taken with a long focal length lens rather than a shorter focal length lens because using a longer focal length lens makes far objects look closer to nearer objects. It compresses the distances which gives a slightly unnatural look. I don't know what that is called but is probably what foreshortening is really about. But technically there is no difference. It is a human perception based on expeience of seeing things with the human eye which somehow look different when seen through a camera lens.

 

[Alan Johnson]

I'm sure the reason that Barnack even had a 50mm lens was because it was (is) the "normal" lens for the 3cm x 4cm on 127 film that was popular at the time. It isn't really very close to the correct diagonal. It was just around, Leitz even supplied a 50mm Elmar to a 127 camera, can't remember which camera.

Not sure that is correct,
This link says the Tessar he copied was designed to cover a cine frame,see under Leitz Elmar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessar
The 50mm lens was not the normal lens for 127 film.
The 127 film popular at that time was used eg in the vest pocket Kodak, which had a 72mm lens:
http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Vest_Pocket_Kodak

 

[nosmok]

Not sure that is correct,
This link says the Tessar he copied was designed to cover a cine frame,see under Leitz Elmar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessar
The 50mm lens was not the normal lens for 127 film.
The 127 film popular at that time was used eg in the vest pocket Kodak, which had a 72mm lens:
http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Vest_Pocket_Kodak

The problem with this version of events is that 35mm cine frame is equivalent to 35mm still half-frame: 18x24mm vs 24x36mm; the 35mm cine frame has been the same for a century or more. A 25mm is close to "normal" for cine. And 127 is a roll film, like 120, so different formats are possible: 8 exposures of 40mm x 60mm (the Vest Pocket Kodak you mention, which I have and shoot-- it's a lovely camera); 12 exposures of 40mm x 40mm (the baby Rollei TLR and equivalents, with a roughly 60mm FL lens), or 16 exposures of 30mm x 40mm (most miniature 127 cameras, like the Gelto or Balda or Zeiss, whose normal lens is 50mm). The last types typically have TWO red windows on the back, because 127 backing paper was not numbered for 3x4 in the early days, just as 120 was not numbered for 6x4.5; you dialed each number successively into each window to get the 3x4 format.

What I am not 100% sure about, now that I think about it, is were there 3x4 format 127 film cameras before Barnack built the ur-Leica. But these facts remain: that 50mm IS the "normal" lens, ie. the diagonal, of a 3x4cm frame; and that it IS NOT "normal", ie. the diagonal, of either 35mm cine frame or 35mm still frame. I'll hit the Google and report back .

...aaanndd I'm back! It seems that Barnack invented the 35mm still frame all by himself in 1914; he decided that the true cine frame was "too small". Which makes his choice of 50mm as the normal lens kind of odd. And thus the fact that 50mm is normal for 3x4 127 is what drove the invention of 3x4 127, which seems to have been introduced in 1927 or thereabouts. I assumed that there was a 50mm lens laying around for Barnack to stick on the camera he bodged up... there wasn't, unless he jumped into the time machine he invented at the same time and got one from a 1927 127 3x4 camera. In which case he would be celebrated for time travel and the whole Leica thing a mere afterthought. Just goes to show you shouldn't expect the world to follow a sensible path, and what seems obvious now is not always so .

 

[nosmok]

OK, I'll shut up about this eventually, I promise, but...

OK, so we know that Oskar Barnack decided that the 35mm cine frame was too small. So he doubled it, to 24x36mm. So, what "normal" lens to use? He just doubled that too, obviously, from 25mm to 50mm. Here's where it gets weird: the expected "normal" lens (the diagonal of the frame) for the 35mm cine frame is an exact 30mm. 25mm is a bit wide. With the doubled width of the 35mm still frame, the doubling of the "normal" cine lens comes out a little too long, 50mm vs ~43mm.

So, it would seem Barnack either a) made an arithmetic mistake when he established the new frame size and just doubled the "normal" lens size; b) knew and didn't care ("everybody is using the wrong normal already, what's the difference?"), or c) the idea that "the normal lens is the diagonal of the frame size" was thought up AFTER Barnack. Anybody have any idea which might be the case? I must be shouting into the void at this point, but I think it's an interesting historical question.