Are you a 50mm lover?

MP Guy

MP Guy

Just another face in the crowd
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I come to the realization that 90% of my pictures are with a 50mm lens. In fact, I actually have 5 50's. Having said that, I kinda created a pigeon hole for my site that is solely dedicated to images captured with a 50mm lens. Check it out at www.50mil.com amd let me know what you think.

Lastly, I received a new 50 f2 apo lanthar for the z mount which iu need to go out and try. But the weather here has been a total mess and I am dealing with no water on my property since Monday after a 100 foot cotton wood fell on my pump hosue and took out all my water equipment for the house.
 
At one time, I subscribed to the notion that there was no such thing as "too wide". In recent years, I have moved to using the normal 95% of the time, this being based on a strong desire to let the subject speak for itself, clearly and without interference. I will use a slight wide angle or telephoto to help with framing, but I don't want them to impose their vision on the subject. 35mm or 75mm (or their medium format equivalents) are as extreme as I will go.
 
I have a few 50's. I like them. My first camera, the one in the picture to the left, a Voigtlaender Vito II had a 50mm f/3.5 lens. It was standard then, it is standard now. I's a popular focal length with lots to choose fro. Too many. ;o)
 
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For many years I've been saying ...and teaching when I taught photo classes... that for me a reasonably fast normal lens is by far the most versatile, most used lens in my camera kit. So yeah, I have several 50mm lenses—nowadays, mostly Leica since they're my FF 35mm bodies, for the most part, in both film and digital... 😉

Elmar 5.0cm f/3.5
Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.5
Summicron-M 50mm f/2
Summicron-R 50mm f/2
Heliar Classic 50mm f/1.5 VM

(I do have 50mm for Hasselblad V and Olympus FourThirds system as well...)

G
 
Yes, 50 is probably my favorite focal length and I have a 50mm or equivalent lens for each camera body I own. That adds up to six—five true 50mm manual focus lenses in various mounts and a 35mm for Nikon DX (slightly more than 50mm equivalent but near enough as makes no difference). My favorite is probably the 50mm f/1.4 Super Takumar.
 
MP Guy said:
I come to the realization that 90% of my pictures are with a 50mm lens. In fact, I actually have 5 50's. Having said that, I kinda created a pigeon hole for my site that is solely dedicated to images captured with a 50mm lens. Check it out at www.50mil.com amd let me know what you think.

Lastly, I received a new 50 f2 apo lanthar for the z mount which iu need to go out and try. But the weather here has been a total mess and I am dealing with no water on my property since Monday after a 100 foot cotton wood fell on my pump hosue and took out all my water equipment for the house.
Click to expand...

I own and use four:

50mm f/3.5 Uncoated Collapsible Elmar LTM
50mm f/2.5 Color-Skopar LTM
50mm f/2 V3 Summicron M
50mm f/1.4 Nikkor AIS F mount

Other than the Elmar, all of these are excellent performers limited primarily by the resolution possible with the small 35mm negative. The Elmar, being uncoated, is a specialty lens that "blooms" in really interesting ways when pointed at light sources, reflections, or specular highlights. This can be exploited to good effect for aesthetic reasons.

But... my goto for 35mm on all brands is 35mm or 20/21mm focal lengths. These wider views are far more natural to me. Contrary to what has been repeated for time immemorial, a 50mm lens does NOT mimic the field of view of the human eye. Neither do either a 35mm or 21mm. It's pretty easy to demonstrate the the human field of view is very nearly 180 degrees (see Barry Thornton's "Edge Of Darkness").
 
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I just counted 13. Definitely my fav focal length followed by the 35mm. The 50mm was always the lens I was going back to after using slow zoom lenses and eventually I got used to it. Now I know intuitively what distance to leave between myself and my subject.
 
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I have fewer 50mm lenses that what Brian S has!
I have always preferred using my 50mm lenses over (say) my 35mm lenses. I few the latter as a wide angle lens.
Today, in my camera bag, and used today at our beaches, I have M10+Rigid Summicron and M9+Zeiss 45mm/2 G in M mount.
The 45mm lens is nearly a 50mm lens 🙂 I think, I read somewhere that its true focal length is 47mm. Life is too short for not using the 50mm lenses.
 
I have more fifties than any other size lens, however, I tend to use 35mm the most.

Cut & paste from mt lens list:
Voigtländer 50mm f2 APO-Lanthar Aspherical (Sony E-mount) lens (ø49mm filter size)
Voigtländer 50mm f1.5 Heliar Classic SC VM lens (ø49mm filter size)
Voigtländer 50mm f1.5 Nokton Vintage Line Aspherical II SC VM lens (ø43mm filter size)
Voigtländer 50mm f1 Nokton Aspherical VM lens (ø62mm filter size)
Sigma 50mm f2 DG DN Contemporary lens (ø58mm filter size)
Fujinon GF 63mm f2.8 R WR lens (FF Eq 50mm) (ø62mm filter size)
Fujinon XF 33mm f1.4 R LM WR lens (FF Eq 50mm) (ø58mm filter size)
Fujinon XF 35mm f2 R WR lens (FF Eq 53mm) (ø43mm filter size)
Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f1.2 (X-mount) lens (FF Eq 53mm) (ø46mm filter size)
Voigtländer Macro APO-Ultron 35mm f2 (X-mount) lens (FF Eq 52.5mm) (ø49mm filter size)

Of all my 50mm lenses the Voigtländer 50mm f1.5 Heliar Classic SC VM lens is my favorite; it possesses some sort of voodoo magic that makes good shots look great and not so good shots look wonderfully interesting! 🙂

All the best,
Mike
 
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