Wide angle lenses and MF?

I have an RB67 with a 50mm and a 65mm lens. I find I don't use either very often!

I read where many of you post that the 50mm is your favorite lens.
What is your primary use for wide angle beside landscape work?

This was shot using a 58mm on 6x7:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

It may indeed be a "landscape" shot, but I don't think it is a traditional one.

I like the perspective resulting from being closer to a subject - the wider angle lenses help me achieve that.

Have you experimented with shots of your violins using "standard" vs. "wide-angle" lenses?

I don't own a RB, but I like the 45mm at 6x4,5 and the 90mm at 4x5.

I use them for lanscape, but also for machines, engines and cars.

I have a Hasselblad 50mm FLE that lets you get pretty close and also works for street, botanical and landscape and family groups. When I travel and carrying a lot of equipment is not practical I take the 50 and 150 and often a 2x. Covers most bases for me.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

Great image, Matt!

Thanks Ralph

You too should consider entering the Monthly Shooting Assignment on APUG

I come from 35mm RF cameras so wide angle seems natural to me. My only lens right now for the mamiya 7 is a 65 and I plan on the 43 soon. I like to get close and get into the photo...even wiht MF

If I'm using one lens on my Bronica S2a, it's often a 50. One feature of the Bronica S2a is that the helical is separate from the lens, so with wider lenses it focuses very close, because it's designed to be long enough for a 200mm lens, and that makes a 50mm attractive. If I'm traveling in a city where spaces are tight, it's handy to be a bit wide, and it's a good lens for environmental portraits, where you want to show the surroundings. And with medium format, if you're only using one lens and have to crop a bit, grain isn't so much of an issue as it is with 35mm, so often you can afford to compose a little loosely, but if you've got a longer lens and no room to back up, you're stuck. A wider lens also gives you more DOF, if you need it.

These shots are all with the Nikkor 50/2.8 on the Bronica S2a--

http://www.davidagoldfarb.com/photo/mta/index.htm

I have the 50c for my RB67, which I use a lot. I like landscapes, cityscapes,etc. I know some people don't care for the 50, but I love mine. Just can't live without it.

Jeff

I have a 50mm for the Rolleiflex SL66, and I think it's an outstanding lens. And with the bellows of the SL66, you can get really close.

The standing lens on my ETRS is the 40mm. I also have a 50 but like the 40 a smidge better.

stradibarrius said:

... What is your primary use for wide angle beside landscape work?

Click to expand...

It's time to get to your question.

Architecture.

Beautiful image Ralph! So architecture is another real use. I read some where a glamor photographer said W/A was indispensable????

I have the 50mm for the mamiya 6 as well as the 45mm for the RF645 and I find I use them either when I have my back to a wall already or I want to get a subject in the very near foreground as well as another object or landscape in the distance. When I'm out photographing I have the focal lengths (50,75,150) in my head and can pretty much visualize what lens I'm going to need on the camera before even holding it up to my eye. I think atleast one wide angle lens is a must for most MF work.

"I have 50 mm Distagon for my Hasselblad. OK, it's 6x6 and not 6x7, but close enough. Anyway, it came in the kit with the camera and I honestly didn't think I'd use it all that much. Thought I'd use the 150 and the 80 most of the time. Boy was I wrong. I like that 50. If I had to give one lens up out of the kit it would be the 150 (not that I'd want to), because I use that one least.

I tend to stay away from wide angles for landscape. I like wides and ultrawides for closer-up scenic things and documentary-style stuff, street etc. For most landscape compositions I tend to go at least normal or longer. On my rb kit, I think the 127 and the 210 get the most use for landscape; on the mamiya 6 it's the 150.

I use my rb/rz wides for close-up and macro, mostly.

funny you mentioned that, but when I look at what lens sits on my SQ-A most of the time it's definitely 50mm PS. If I had a 40mm I guess it'd be different, at least for 80mm which I never use that much.

I use wider lenses when I want a wider angle of view. I want a wider angle of view when I want to take pictures in which I feel the wider angle of view would be beneficial, for any of a variety of reasons.

I do it to increase how much of the background appears in the picture, while keeping a foreground subject the same size, meaning that I move closer to the foreground subject. I do it sometimes simply to increase the angle of view while keeping my location the same. I do it when I am shooting without looking through the camera, to allow myself to shoot from perspectives from which I cannot look through the camera and still get the shot, and/or to snap pictures at times at which I cannot shoot if I take the time to look through the camera, to allow myself to get reasonably sharp pictures via less-than-accurate pre focusing and depth of field. I do it sometimes to allow myself to move close enough to significantly warp a subject's appearance, while still capturing the subject within the frame.

I do all of this regardless of format, except inasmuch the format dictates subject matter. I do not as often, for instance, zone focus medium format cameras, or otherwise shoot them sloppily and haphazardly, as I do small format, since I usually choose to use a small format camera to shoot subject matter with which I find these methods of shooting to be helpful. Like you, I find myself using wider lenses less often than normal lenses, though, as I said, this is pretty much across the board, and has more to do with subject matter than it has to do directly with format. In every format, my most-used lenses are long or normal lenses. I find them easier and more "natural" to compose with, and to be better tools with which to create images that I consider "strong," "direct," and "graphic." Using wider lenses is much harder for me, though I do certainly make use of them. I find them to be excellent tools for literal representation, for one thing. They capture a lot of information, though, as I said, arranging it in a palatable fashion is harder and less natural for me than it is with normal and long lenses. When I do, however, I find myself rarely going wider than the equivalent of a 28mm lens on small format, unless necessary for some reason.

On 6x6, I only have a 50 as a wide angle, but it seems the perfect complement to an 80 (most used) and a 150. It is nice that Hasselblad stuff is so expensive......keeps the load down