The 50mm Lens

[FPjohn]

Hello:

Found on Karen's photoethnography blog

http://vothphoto.com/spotlight/articles/forgotten_lens/forgotten-lens.htm

All the best in the season of light!

Yours
Frank

 

[Keith]

That's a nice simplified article ... easily understood and not deluging the reader with techno babble that means little. I've always really liked Karen's site ... it was one of the websites I used to browse constantly that convinced me to buy a rangefinder and the links she provides in a lot of her articles are invaluable when you are starting out in film photography.

It also confirms what we all know but don't always practice ... that a rangefinder or cheap SLR with a fastish 50mm on it is still the ultimate tool for the minimum outlay ... thanks for the link. 🙂

 

[JeremyLangford]

That is one of the best articles on photography that I have ever read. I completely agree with everything written.

I mostly shoot with a Rokkor 50/1.8 and have been arguing with my dad a lot lately about how he should get a prime lens for his dslr (Him and his friends all shoot with dslrs, and they all have all kinds of $500 - 1000 dollar zoom lenses. (pretty much all of them are f/3.5-4.5)

I always give them a pretty hard time about how they should thrown away their slow, lame zoom lenses and start off with a cheap 30mm f/1.4 (Their dslrs have 1.6x crop factors so a 30mm would be close to a 50mm) but they never listen and just say that when I work full time, and have kids, that I will understand the convenience of a zoom lens.

I'm getting mad just thinking about them saying stuff like this. Can't wait to show them this article though. I'm gonna have my dad come in here and read it in a second!

thanx

 

[Pherdinand]

yeah...go try to buy a pentax 50mm-ish fast lens, for a reasonable price.

 

[Pherdinand]

not in friggin europe. 🙁
my friend bought a k100D; i convinced him to buy a "cheapie" fast normal lens, he asked me "ok where?" i started to look for it...nothing. Just super expensive "special edition" stuff.
So he got an old manual focus rikenon, that *almost* works good on the body.

 

[gb hill]

One of my best ebay buys was a Canon 50/1.4ssc in fd mount for under $20.00 Killer lense.

 

[Mudman]

hell order off an american site - with the current exchange rate even with VAT you should be alright.

 

[nikon_sam]

I'm tellin' ya, kids these days don't know the right way to start off...
The 50 can do so many things, but you have to use it to know it...

Most DSLR users put these 12-500mm zooms on because they don't want to change lenses for fear of getting their sensors dirty...
I shoot primes, with the exception of one small zoom, and will change lenses so many times I have to feel which lens is on which body in order to know which one to grab...

 

[DeeCee3]

B&H ships worldwide. They're listing as in stock the Pentax SMC FA 50mm f1.4 lens at $199.00, brand new.

dc3