Focal length that seems like memories?

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Not sure if this is the right subforum, but here goes.

Over in this thread here, @andrew00 makes this interesting comment regarding the Contax T3:

Looking for a P+S like the Contax T3, but cheaper

Hey, I'm going to be travelling in a bit and was looking to pickup a film camera to record the memories. I've gone back and forth about what to buy, from P+S's to a Leica M6 etc. Ultimately, I decided it's best to buy something not too expensive so I can spend the money on actually...
www.rangefinderforum.com www.rangefinderforum.com

"A P+S like the Contax T3 seemed ideal. It's small but, in it's usage, really high quality, with a great lens and a nice compact and portable body. I also really like the 35mm focal length for feeling a lot like a memory."

This got me thinking, and I looked back through my Contax T3 images, as well as other 35mm images I've taken with the Canon 35L, Voigtlander 35/1.4 and 35/1.2, and a handful of Zeiss 35/2.8 images. While I've never associated the 35mm focal length with a memory, I get where andrew00 is coming from. It's wide enough that you can see context, but not so wide that the context detracts from the subject.

Having said that, I prefer 28mm and wider to capture what my eye sees in the moment. In fact, if I were to think of a lens which matches my visual perception, it would be like a 25mm anamorphic lens with 2x desqueeze, or like a Hasselblad X Pan with its two frames width of image, if that makes sense. But this is different from the internal sense of a 'memory'.

What focal length would you associate with memories?
 
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Interesting topic. For me, that focal length is around the 28-35 angle of view, but most importantly needs some vignetting to be most memory-like. I suspect this is a big reason why Holga camera images often have such strong emotional impact, it's the vignetting of the meniscus lens - and the off-axis blurriness that renders these images more like how we see, with a sharp central zone surrounded by a blurry periphery.
 
I don't like anything other than 'normal' length lenses myself. I prefer to shoot scenes as they appear through the eye, even if that means what you actually saw is cropped. I would hope my memory of a scene wouldn't exaggerate the angle of view of a remembered scene...

Only a tiny section of what your eyes see is actually in full definition/colour at one time. Most of it's approximated by your brain afterwards. So capturing the blurry periphery of your vision in sharp definition with a wide angle lens is probably the opposite of an accurate recall of a scene.

Edit: What JoeV said makes sense though. Good theory about Holgas and emotional connection.
 
None. The "field of view" changes with every image, and the sense of space is warped! If eyesight is distinct from the camera image, memory is also distinct from eyesight.

Maybe he was talking about photos in a family album, which are probably 50mm, 38mm, or 35mm.
 
Memory-like probably means avoiding strong artifacts of the photographic process that are not apparent in human vision. That's easiest with 35-50. Too compressed a perspective won't work, and with wide angles avoiding too obvious perspective distortion is harder, but possible. And I think the main subject would have to be central in the frame with not too many distracting details in the periphery, to approach human vision. Check out the thread somewhere here with Leica pictures from Vietnam, that guy knows his 21! To me, they look very natural although well-composed and have a memory-like quality (but I've never been in Vietnam).
 
I have memories which are 180 degree fisheye-like, complete with looming faces, and other memories which are catdiotropic telephoto-like, magnified but with completely indistinct background, but mostly my memories are indeterminate semi-wideangle 28 to 35 fov. Or maybe that's just the way I see.
 
I don't want to make too much of this, since I got it from a post that was either on RFF or else on photo.net a few years back; but someone claimed that the focal length of the human eye was 42mm. I think the writer was arguing that this would therefore be the "natural" focal length. This does appear consistent with comments above that estimate the "memory" focal length to be 35-50mm: 42mm falls right at the center of that range.

But is it focal length that matters, or angle of view? I don't imagine the retina measures 24 x 36mm, after all! I think the angle of view with binocular vision is quite wide, although, as noted above, only a tiny central area is sharp. Fred Waller developed Cinerama with an "eye" to approximating human vision, and the Cinerama screen is in a 146 degree arc. I think I will try to remember to ask one of my clients, who is an ophthalmologist, about the focal length/angle of view of the eye.

For me, personally, the 35mm lens on 24 x 36mm format captures about what I experience as close to what my vision takes in. I would say 40mm is in that ball park as well. And I suspect that my "visual memory" is a little tighter than that, maybe about like my 45mm Nikkor-P, or even a 50mm on the Nikon. It's as if the mind does a little "cropping" compared to what the eye saw (for me, at least).
 
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pyeh said:
I have memories which are 180 degree fisheye-like, complete with looming faces, and other memories which are catdiotropic telephoto-like, magnified but with completely indistinct background..
Click to expand...

Pete, was this after the RFF Sydney meet at the Baxter Inn? 😀
 
I'll go with the focal length and lens that approximates a Box Brownie. The Holga Theory sounds good!

What I'm curious about, is whether the iPhone generation will remember in 31mm, which I believe is the equivalent focal length.
 
To me memory is associated with old photos. If I look at what was available in fifties to nineties where my memories are from it is 135 film format cameras made in many millions and sold with 50mm or very close to it lens.

And G-thing is for short memories, IMO. 🙂
 
Since this isn't posted in an RF sub-forum, I would say I have no preference other than what I decide will give me the best photo at the time. That said:

I took a ton of photos with a 50mm f/1.7 Yashinon lens and was happy. That was before I learned that there was a reason for interchangeable lenses. 😛

So I bought an 18mm Spiratone (remember them?) f/3.5 lens and got a lot of shots I really liked, and couldn't have gotten with any other focal length. Spiratone had a 35mm lens to give away for a certain amount spent on the order, and I got it. Sun lens as I recall. I have never been able to like 35mm. I have some good 35mm lenses that sit on the shelf and cry with each other. It isn't the quality of the lens, just that focal length. But the 18mm? I am still in love with it.
 
I tend to the view that an image which speaks directly to the emotions is one that most evokes memories. This is not reliant on focal length per se. It depends on framing, composition and most especially on light and shadow. I try for this in many of my shots and I have been blunt in saying that I will also post process for this very often if I otherwise like the image but feel it is lacking something. This processing can involve such things as cropping, creating a slight vignette, adding some blur in some parts of the image etc. All of which are intended to direct the viewer's attention to a specific subject or image component. And sometimes I will decide the photo works better in black and white than in color and act accordingly. I said in one of my articles on my approach (linked in my signature) that it's about creating mood and that I often tend towards a hypnotic and dreamy style where I can. In saying this I am taking words from an article about a photographer (now passed) whom I admire greatly - Saul Leiter where it was said:
"The content of Saul Leiter’s photographs arrives on a sort of delay: it takes a moment after the first glance to know what the picture is about. You don’t so much see the image as let it dissolve into your consciousness, like a tablet in a glass of water. One of the difficulties of photography is that it is much better at being explicit than at being reticent. Precisely how the hypnotic and dreamlike feeling is achieved in Leiter’s work is a mystery, even to their creator.”

In summary it is not so much about the focal length of the lens it is about the approach of the photographer.

Examples of a few of my shots that I think have worked (and in none of these do I know or care which focal length I used):
Image-2-680x461.jpg


10-1-680x450.jpg


9-1-680x430.jpg


Image-1-680x502.jpg


Image-101.jpg


Image-4-680x442.jpg
 
These response are great, thanks everyone!

Thinking about it some more, memories are subjective and dependent on the individual, and the memory itself. For me, a memory is often a clear detail or set of actions in a fairly fuzzy context, so the suggestion of Holga and similar images with vignetting and blur makes a lot of sense.

A fast 35 would capture this; I find that a fast 50 captures these kinds of images as well. The Zeiss C Sonnar lends itself well to the sense of 'a memory', although I look back at a lot of my 24-25mm images and find they give me a good sense of a memory, too.

Shooting from the eye also helps give the sense of memory to an image, as we see through our eyes, not the hip!

A style of cinematography and editing which is very memory-like is demonstrated in this TVC for Samsonite luggage in Hong Kong. It employs a lot of movement and selective focus, shooting through obstacles, lens flare, and even a Fuji X100!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbOmrUygTEU
 
Rob-F said:
I don't want to make too much of this, since I got it from a post that was either on RFF or else on photo.net a few years back; but someone claimed that the focal length of the human eye was 42mm. I think the writer was arguing that this would therefore be the "natural" focal length. This does appear consistent with comments above that estimate the "memory" focal length to be 35-50mm: 42mm falls right at the center of that range.

But is it focal length that matters, or angle of view? I don't imagine the retina measures 24 x 36mm, after all! I think the angle of view with binocular vision is quite wide, although, as noted above, only a tiny central area is sharp. Fred Waller developed Cinema with an "eye" to approximating human vision, and the Cinema screen is in a 146 degree arc. I think I will try to remember to ask one of my clients, who is an ophthalmologist, about the focal length/angle of view of the eye.

For me, personally, the 35mm lens on 24 x 36mm format captures about what I experience as close to what my vision takes in. I would say 40mm is in that ball park as well. And I suspect that my "visual memory" is a little tighter than that, maybe about like my 45mm Nikkor-P, or even a 50mm on the Nikon. It's as if the mind does a little "cropping" compared to what the eye saw (for me, at least).
Click to expand...

I believe that is 42mm per eye, but because we see in binocular, the central part of our vision approximates a 35mm FOV.

I wish I had bird eyes, so I could see telescopically like the eagles, or at night like the owls. But right now I'm just glad I can see at all, and my glasses can correct the faults. I do find myself using my 35mm lenses more than anything else, but I'm not adverse to going wider or narrower if the situation calls for it.

PF
 
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