Ansel's Focal Length - (Blog/Article)

[wlewisiii]

Maybe I just have a low tolerance for lens changes 😅 but have never warmed to 90 on M. L-mounted, yeah.

if at a wedding or similar, 35/85, two bodies. Public event like a rodeo or car show, 28/50, two bodies. Sometime, rarely, 35/50 paired. The wide always gets the bulk of the work, with the longer one for faces.

Portrait studio, 50/85, sometimes for, umm, sentimental reasons a 60's Nikkor 105 (also because the 85 weights a freaking ton)

I can imagine.

I don't use the 90 all that much but I always regret it if I leave it home and since my 90 is the tiny Elmar 90/4 it's very easy to bring along. The 50 is my primary, 65 ~ 70% of my shots on the Leica with the 28 making up about 25%. All other focal lengths (21, 35, 90, 135) for the small remainder.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I basically never shoot landscape though, and the Ansel split was intriguing. Was he really swapping lengths on the fly, or using one for a long while, then another for a long while.... ? Hard to tell, based on the article.

For most of his life, Adams shot primarily with large format cameras. He owned 35mm and medium format cameras when he was young, but did not do much of the work for which he is famous with them. Later, near the end of his life when he was getting too old to carry around and set up heavy large format gear, he began using a Hasselblad for most of his work.

With large format, you basically have to choose a lens for each shot. The cameras can't really be transported around from place to place with a lens attached unless you're walking around a small area with the tripod in hand and the camera mounted on it.

 

[bjorke]

The cameras can't really be transported around from place to place with a lens attached unless you're walking around a small area with the tripod in hand and the camera mounted on it.

True, but that says nothing about whether he was packing more than one lens at a time, attached or not. That Cooke alone is about 1kg, in the same range as the otherwise-magnificent 85mm I whose weight I was griping about earlier in the thread. Would someone carry two?

(I know, I know, I can see my dusty copy of The Camera right across the room... 😅 )

 

[skahde]

When I go through my own the pictures which made it up on the wall I find Ansel's pattern for landscapes: 35 mm and 80 mm thinking inside the 24x36 mm frame. But for people 50 mm dominates. If there is a single person in the frame I rarely used a "portrait-lens". Including a bit more into the frame and using a 50-55 mm just comes more natural for me and my vision.

 

[agentlossing]

I've always felt right at home shooting a landscape with a 35mm. It seems "right," neither too wide nor too long. Wider lenses make it harder to find good foreground, though their results can be great when done well.

Interestingly, I haven't shot with telephoto focal length in some time, but recently have been shooting a M4/3 zoom (the 12-45mm f4 Pro) at the longer end, and remembering how much I enjoyed the 75mm-equivalent of a fifty on an APS-C DSLR back in the day. The 70-80mm range is very versatile.

 

[wlewisiii]

I've always felt right at home shooting a landscape with a 35mm. It seems "right," neither too wide nor too long. Wider lenses make it harder to find good foreground, though their results can be great when done well.

Interestingly, I haven't shot with telephoto focal length in some time, but recently have been shooting a M4/3 zoom (the 12-45mm f4 Pro) at the longer end, and remembering how much I enjoyed the 75mm-equivalent of a fifty on an APS-C DSLR back in the day. The 70-80mm range is very versatile.

I can understand that. To me the world looks "right" through a 50mm lens. Especially a landscape. I have to think about it with a wider or longer lens. It takes much longer to properly visualize the image. I do find it's easier with a 28 than with a 35 for some reason, I've never been sure why.

But a classic "normal" lens? Snap, move, snap, move, snap, wash, rinse, repeat 😉

 

[Penceler]

Much to my amazement, I find I very rarely go beyond 75mm - at least in the last several years. 40 years ago everything had to be tightly cropped. Now, just shoot. 28/50 or 35/75 depending on the mood. wasn’t intentional, just kinda they way it turned out.

Nice thread btw.

John