40mm Anyone?

My favorite Rangefinder the Olympus 35-S (1957) comes in two versions, a 4.2cm or 4.8cm lens, the 4.2 being the faster of the two...
I love the 4.2cm lens and what it will produce...
If I could find an SLR version of it I would own one...
 
I took a Rollei 35 with me on my first Big Tour of America and Europe when I was 22. I really enjoyed that camera and its 40mm lens and never found myself wanting anything else. In fact I had bought myself my first serious camera just before that trip, an OM1 and a few lenses, but I vetoed them just before I left, in favour of borrowing my dad's Rollei.
Nowadays I prefer a 35mm or 50mm lens, so much so that I use them both on a CL, even though that camera has 40 (and 50) framelines and using a 35 means guesstimating with the whole viewfinder window.
 
I've used rollei35 & Leica CL & Minolta CLE.... but far prefer the 35mm lens
 
If I didn't have so many examples of these (Voigtlander 40mm for M42 / Bessaflex, Pentax M 40mm f2.8, Olympus 35SP (42mm 1.7) and of course the awesome Summicrom- C 40mm for the CL) I would say the fact that they straddle the 35mm/50mm conundrum and tend to be tiny makes them the perfect antidote for GAS! ;)
 
After giving away my R3A and Nokton 40 it's now the 40mm Ultron and a Nikon FE for me.
Perfect starting point for nearly everything I do (having a 85/2 and a 24/2 or the 16/2.8 in the bag too).
 
Being a pragmatist I did a simple test years ago. I selected a scene with some depth to it, then got a tripod mounted 35mm camera with both 35mm and a 40 lenses.

I shot one frame with the 40mm lens. This was the baseline.
I shot another with 35mm lens without moving the tripod position
I shot a third frame with the 35mm lens after moving the tripod so that the coverage matched that of the 40mm lens.

Then I compared the coverage of 40mm and 35mm lens from the same position. (first vs. second photo) Difference was minimal.
Then I compared the perspective of 40mm and 35mm lenses from moving the camera position to where the coverage matched (first vs. third photo) Difference was minimal.

I concluded the difference in both coverage and perspective between a 40mm and a 35mm lens was so minimal that it was not worth having both and I could do well with either in any situation.

I also noticed that the FOV of the 40mm lens matched the 35mm frame lines of my ZI rangefinder better than the 35mm lens.
 
forgot to mention my beloved Rollei 35, (with the usual dings), has a superb 40mm lens, l carry that little gem around a lot
 
40 does feel like the perfect field of view, 35 being a little loose and 50 too tight. i suppose the later M frame lines are a good approximation for a 40mm lens. guess i'll have to make do with my older bodies and 35s.
 
stevierose said:
I really like the 40mm field of view, seems natural to me.
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I have said that about the 35mm; though 40mm is close. I've been told that the focal length of the human eye is around 42mm; which may or may not explain why 40mm is a "natural" focal length!

Me, I use the 40mm f/1.4 CV lens or the Minolta 40mm only with my Leica bodies that undersized 50mm framelines. I have modified these two lenses to bring up the 35mm framelines, for which the 40mm is an better match at my shooting distances when I'm using my M6, M7, or MP. For my M2, M5, and M4-P, I use 35mm lenses. I don't use a 50 at all with my M6, M7, MP bodies because the 50mm framelines are impossibly small!
 
Hi,


Whoever told you it was 42mm has never looked in a mirror. Your eyeballs are a clue to the focal length and it looks like 24 ish to me.


Regards, David
 
Yeah I thought it seemed a bit large, but I don't know how deep the eye is, front to back. Can't really see that in a mirror, though.
 
FWIW, it got me thinking and I looked and found this:-

https://www.britannica.com/science/human-eye

Scan down to somewhere between a third and half way down and you'll find a diagram followed by some of the dimensions etc.

Anyway, I'm chuffed that my guess was in the right area.

I wondered years ago why people go on and on about 50mm standard lenses being how we see things when so many swear by 35 or 40mm lenses; eventually I found it in a 1930's magazine review of the Leica...

Regards, David
 
Human vision doesn't have one easily defined field of view. We can detect motion over at least 150° horizontally, whereas for reading, we only use a very small angle and move the eye around a lot. Which one shall it be? A night sky or the canopy in a forest will look perfectly natural photographed with an ultra wide angle, while distant wildlife or the moon photographed with an around normal lens always leaves photographic novices disappointed as to why it is so tiny in the picture while we could see it just fine with the naked eye.
Normal focal length was just lenses that were useful in a wide range of applications and reasonably easy to make, and later the shortest that would clear the mirror on SLRs, before retrofocal designs came along.


David Hughes said:
FWIW, it got me thinking and I looked and found this:-

https://www.britannica.com/science/human-eye

Scan down to somewhere between a third and half way down and you'll find a diagram followed by some of the dimensions etc.

Anyway, I'm chuffed that my guess was in the right area.

I wondered years ago why people go on and on about 50mm standard lenses being how we see things when so many swear by 35 or 40mm lenses; eventually I found it in a 1930's magazine review of the Leica...

Regards, David
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retinax said:
Human vision doesn't have one easily defined field of view. We can detect motion over at least 150° horizontally...
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I think it's wider than that, perhaps wider than 180° or more as I've experimented and can see LED's on stuff when I've almost walked past them.

It's one of the reasons I like the Leica CL with its two lenses, the 40 as normal and the 90 for detail and portraits.

Regards, David
 
willie_901 said:
My first RF camera was a Canonet G-III QL 17. Ever since I've been fond of the 40mm FOV.
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I actually have two of these and yes, I enjoy shooting with the wider "normal" lens. I tend to shoot with zooms on the wide side of normal as well.
 
willie_901 said:
My first RF camera was a Canonet G-III QL 17. .....
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I bought one of these in the early '70's. It was my first serious camera and I loved it shooting with it for about 5 years until it fell out of a canoe. I replaced it with the just released Canon AE-1.

I was given another Canonet G-III QL 17 about 7-8 years ago. Paid for a total overhaul and used it a bit but that old love just never came back.

As I said before, 35mm and 40mm lenses are the same to me.
 
I have a 40/2.8 Rollei and a 43/1.9 Pentax that I occasionally use with RF cameras. They are not my mostly used lenses though. Both are hard to find lenses.
 
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