Is a 40mm lens the sweet spot?

[Trius]

For me it's the 50 because people look naturally placed in the perspective it creates (closest to how the eye sees).

Actually 40mm is closer, IMO. I just picked up my 35SP and raised it to my eye. Perfect FOV and perspective.

Edit: And yes, 40mm is THE sweet spot for "normal". 28, 40 and 60-ish make a great combo. Too bad no one makes a 60mm any more; the Helios 44M (M42) is no slouch for SLR.

All that said, I like 50 a lot, too. As stated, it seems like (and canact as) a short tele.

 

[PMCC]

Add my vote for the 40mm CLE Rokkor-M. Another sweet one is the Color Yashinon 40/1.7 on the Yashica 35 GX -- a nice compact fixed lens RF street camera. I have lots of time for 40's.

 

[Al Kaplan]

...and if like many people you print on 8x10 paper the diagonal is very close to 35mm. But no two individual lenses are lilkely to be the exact same focal length, or even the marked focal length for that matter, the frame lines in the finder are not accurate and vary from camera model to camera model, negative carriers usually crop a bit. Stop obssessing about "What's normal?" Pick a focal length that sees like you see and call that normal.

 

[40oz]

I like the 40mm length, but I always thought of it as an extremely long wideangle 🙂

 

[Trius]

I like the 40mm length, but I always thought of it as an extremely long wideangle 🙂

Until you zoom with your feet. 😀

 

[noimmunity]

where on ebay...can't find it.

I sent you a pm, Joe.

 

[BTMarcais]

Anyway, that diagonal is 43mm, so a 45mm (for example the Contax G 45/2 Planar) is the closest manufactured, as far as I know.

Pentax makes the FA 43mm f/1.9 limited. One of my favorite lenses.
One of the reasons I still pick up the SLR's sometimes. It is a really comfortable focal length to use I find.

They also made a limited edition of this in leica thread mount, came with a VF with 43 and 50mm brightlines.

-Brian

 

[Karefin]

Suddenly I hear more and more about the 40mm lens is the sweet spot and 50mm became the standard via an accident by Barnack in the 30's. My typical kit has been 21-40-90, although I am sneaking in the 75mm more and more. Others's thoughts? I almost consider 50mm as a very short tele these days.

I like your combo! Mine is currently 21-40-135 and I have considered only minor changes if I had all the money. The 40 as a focal length seems best for me in the normal range because with the 50 I normally have to get ackwardly far from people when I'm shooting them. Especially since I don't have a 28 for example. The 50 also results in a bit too teleish perspective for that purpouse.

I also endorse the "more normalness" of 40. The Pentax 43 might be fun to try, but I doubt I'll bother to go through all the trouble and money of changing. A limited edition lens? Not for me, thanks.

 

[zenlibra]

40mm feels "normal" to me as well. Everything I want to shoot frames nicely in a 40mm frameline.

I use 21mm, 40mm, 50mm, and 85mm.

 

[Tom A]

A bit of absolutely useless trivia: Barnacks's first camera (35mm) was supposedly made while he was working for Zeiss. He took the prototype along when he started working for Leica and it became the basis for the Ur-Leica and it has a 42 mm Zeiss Milar lens on it.
Supposedly the 50mm f3.5 Elmax (Max Berek design) was easier to correct and thus became the basis for the 50mm "normal" lens.
The 40f1.4 Nokton is one of my favorite's for a one camera/one lens kit. Stick it on a M2 and use the inside frame of the 35 lines and it works fine. On the M3 I use the outside of the 50 frames - close enough for me. Rangefinders are not an exact science anyway when it comes to framing.

 

[Doug]

...Edit: And yes, 40mm is THE sweet spot for "normal". 28, 40 and 60-ish make a great combo. Too bad no one makes a 60mm any more; the Helios 44M (M42) is no slouch for SLR.

A useful combination, I agree. There is the 60mm Hexanon, and again for SLR the current 58mm f/1.4 Nokton.

If we push a 28, 40, 65 grouping into 6x4.5cm format, it comes out about 45, 65, and 100mm. Coincidentally those are the three lenses last offered for the Bronica RF645. 🙂

I like the 40-ish region for general-purpose carry and I'm fortunate to have lenses around 55°-60° angle of view for formats from half-frame to 6x7. Indeed a "sweet spot"!

 

[BTMarcais]

somehow I've ended up with: pentax 43mm f/1.9, pentax 40mm f/2.8 M (the older manual focus, not the digital pancake), rollei 35T w/ 40mm f/3.5, and the contax G45 f/2. The 40-45 range just seems much more comfortable for me than a 50.

 

[sleepyhead]

A useful combination, I agree. There is the 60mm Hexanon, and again for SLR the current 58mm f/1.4 Nokton.

If we push a 28, 40, 65 grouping into 6x4.5cm format, it comes out about 45, 65, and 100mm. Coincidentally those are the three lenses last offered for the Bronica RF645. 🙂

I like the 40-ish region for general-purpose carry and I'm fortunate to have lenses around 55°-60° angle of view for formats from half-frame to 6x7. Indeed a "sweet spot"!

I guess 75mm lenses on 6x6 are closer to "normal" than 80mm lenses?

 

[ampguy]

43mm is it. 40mm is close.

 

[ray*j*gun]

Tom, what about on an M6?

The 40f1.4 Nokton is one of my favorite's for a one camera/one lens kit. Stick it on a M2 and use the inside frame of the 35 lines and it works fine. On the M3 I use the outside of the 50 frames - close enough for me. Rangefinders are not an exact science anyway when it comes to framing.[/quote]

 

[Daneinbalto]

How to determine theoretical "normal" lens

How to determine theoretical "normal" lens

To return to what a former poster brought up - from where originates the notion that a focal length corresponding to the frame diagonal is "normal"?

I understand that the frame diagonal is how one determines lens equivalents across various formats. For example, the diagonal of the 35 mm negative is 43 mm. If you cut that negative in half, as in a half-frame camera or APS-C, the diagonal is 28 mm - not as you might have expected 22 mm (43/2). Thus, when you go from 35 mm to half-frame or APS-C, the equivalent of a 43 mm is 28 mm, not 22 mm.

But why should there be a 1:1 relation between the diagonal and what is considered a normal lens? Why wouldn't the normal lenses on the two formats be a multiple of the frame diagonal, say, 47 mm and 31 mm? (diagonal x 1.1) or a power of the diagonal, say, 50 mm and 32 mm (diagonal to the power of 1.04)?

Maybe the Wikipedia entry that states that film diagonal = normal lens should be modified to reflect the arbitrary nature of the 1:1 relation.

Unless someone can show that humans, at least when they are young, have a 1:1 relation between the diagonal of their field of view and the focal length of their eyes.

 

[back alley]

what is the field of view of the average human?

 

[nightfly]

40mm is neither here nor there for me. It's not quite wide enough for street and not quite tight enough for casual portraits. It's the Goldilocks of lenses.

I much prefer a 35 as a standard lens. I sold a prefectly good 40mm Summicron so I could spend almost 3 times as much on a 35 Summicron and don't regret it one bit. Tonality is the same but the field of view is much more useful.

 

[NickTrop]

Eh - thumbs down on the 40. Wide enough to distort faces closer in, so you can't use it for portraits. Not wide enough to matter. Get a go 50 (or 45) and take 1 step backwards.... there's your 40.

 

[Frankie]

I have an arsenal of Nikon F/F2/FM2/FM3A and 22 lenses, but I use the CV 40mm/1.4 with my ZM as the one-lens travel outfit. I filed down a claw on the mount to bring up the 35mm frame line which is a tight ~95% frame...Nikon style.

I shot throughout Japan and did not feel I want or need another focal length; 1.4 is handy in low light and the ZM AE is spot on...so pick an aperture, preset and just shoot. I used Tri-X rated at ISO 250, so f8 or 5.6 most of the time.🙂