what is a standard lens for the Leica M bodies, 35 or 50mm ?

raytoei@gmail.com

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I got into a discussion of sorts with a Leica Expert and he told me that the 35mm lens is the standard lens for Leica M bodies. i was thinking...hang on i thought the 50mm was the standard lens for the Leica Barnack (?) and does that translate to the M bodies as well ?

any comments on what is the standard lens for the Leica M bodies ?

raytoei
 
28mm is standard for a .58 finder, 35mm for a .72 finder and 50mm for a .85 finder (or M3 finder). Those finders with those lenses will give you the closest thing to the way the lens views the scene.
 
The M3, the original Leica M system, does not have 35mm framelines. It has 50mm, 90mm, and 135mm. So it would be very hard to argue that 35mm was the standard lens for the M3.

Edit: I like stephen.w's answer better than mine.
 
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A 'standard' lens, is the focal lenght equal to the diagonal of the negative.

So you're both wrong. Because the diagonal of a 35mm negative is 43mm (rounded down).
That makes a 40mm lens more standard then a 35 or 50.
 
HoodedOne said:
A 'standard' lens, is the focal lenght equal to the diagonal of the negative.

So you're both wrong. Because the diagonal of a 35mm negative is 43mm (rounded down).
That makes a 40mm lens more standard then a 35 or 50.
Click to expand...

In fact, the Pentax 1.9/43mm would be the most standard you could go on a Leica LTM or M body.

Sadly, they are rare and expensive.


If given choices between a 35 and a 50 I'd say the 50 is standard, since it's closest to the 43mm diagonal.

Most camera brands also listed the SLR prism magnification with a 50mm lens mounted, back in the days.

stephen.w said:
28mm is standard for a .58 finder, 35mm for a .72 finder and 50mm for a .85 finder (or M3 finder). Those finders with those lenses will give you the closest thing to the way the lens views the scene.
Click to expand...

That sounds very accurate indeed. So, as usual the correct answer is: it depends. 😛
 
Hi,

For some years now, since about 1925, Leitz and then Leica have seen the standard lens as 5cm or 50mm. Or has no one read their catalogues or instruction manuals?

Regards, David
 
HoodedOne said:
A 'standard' lens, is the focal lenght equal to the diagonal of the negative.

So you're both wrong. Because the diagonal of a 35mm negative is 43mm (rounded down).
That makes a 40mm lens more standard then a 35 or 50.
Click to expand...

Traditionally, the term was "normal lens" for a lens with a FL roughly equal to the image diagonal. "Standard" merely refers to what was bundled with the body by default, something that is called a "kit lens" today.

When 35mm full frame (originally termed "double frame") still cameras began to appear a 50mm lens was the standard. There were a number of probable reasons for choosing a lens that was relatively longer than what was conventional on larger formats, not the least of which was the technical difficulty of producing a 40-45mm lens with adequate covering power and the high resolution needed for the small images.

In the 1950s a trend of offering wider, typically 35mm lenses, as standard in addition to the conventional 50mm. Nikon is one that did this as can be seen from their price lists and ads that listed a bundle price and catalogue number for the SP w/ 35mm in addition to the body w/ 50 and body only options. This trend died early with the advent of the 35mm SLR. 35mm lenses that cleared the mirror on these beasts were hard to make (read: expensive) at the time causing the 35mm lenses to be tagged "wide angle". Given that wider than 35mm was extremely difficult many makers had only 35s to offer as wide angles for a number of years.

The drift to more of a true normal lens did happen in the fixed lens cameras. There, the common lens focal lengths eased down to 40-45mm by the late '60s.

BTW, while the full diagonal of a 35mm FF image is ~43.5mm no machine prints ever reproduce this. Machine prints from negatives generally reproduce an area with a diagonal of only 40-41mm and slide mounts generally don't display greater than 41mm. An 8x10 machine print will usually use an area with only a 33-35mm diagonal.

All this makes a 40mm lens the closest compromise to a true "normal" FL lens. Whatever the definition of "normal" or "standard", I don't see how anyone can really consider a 35mm a "wide angle" lens. It's just slightly wide "normal" while a 50mm is equally "off the mark" and is a somewhat long "normal"
 
Let's define FOV of a "normal" lens to be most similar to the FOV of the relaxed human eye, without peripheral vision.

Do you often twist your head to look diagonally at the world ?

Do you shoot more portrait or more landscape format ? You'll probably agree that this is different for each photographer.

A 35 in portrait format has the same FOV as a 50 in landscape format. Since some of us shoot more in portrait format than others, "normal" focal length (i.e. 35 vs 50) is a personal choice.

Roland.
 
I am fortunate to own such a lens.
As for which lens is normal, I have always viewed the 50mm lens as being normal.

buzzardkid said:
In fact, the Pentax 1.9/43mm would be the most standard you could go on a Leica LTM or M body.

Sadly, they are rare and expensive.

If given choices between a 35 and a 50 I'd say the 50 is standard, since it's closest to the 43mm diagonal.

Most camera brands also listed the SLR prism magnification with a 50mm lens mounted, back in the days.

That sounds very accurate indeed. So, as usual the correct answer is: it depends. 😛
Click to expand...
 
Well, The one you have on the camera the most......that's your normal lens...

Did Leica ever sell M bodies with a "Kit" prime... Say a 50mm f/2...or a 35mm f/2
But, that is all marketing isn't it.. they don't know what lens you like to shoot with....
Be it 28, 35 or 50..... so, .58, .72, .85 VF mag. you choose....
 
The classic definition of 'normal' is, as others have said, 'with a focal length equal to the negative diagonal'.

As soon as you vary enlargement size and viewing distance, this goes out of the window.

My 'standards' have included 35mm, 50mm and 58mm on full frame and 21mm and 50mm on an M8 (28mm and 67mm equivalent).

The best definition is "Whatever you're happy with."

When dealing with Leica Experts, remember the etymology of 'expert'. It comes from 'ex' meaning 'a has-been' and 'spurt' meaning 'a drip under pressure'.

Cheers,

R.
 
DNG said:
Well, The one you have on the camera the most......that's your normal lens...

Did Leica ever sell M bodies with a "Kit" prime... Say a 50mm f/2...or a 35mm f/2
But, that is all marketing isn't it.. they don't know what lens you like to shoot with....
Be it 28, 35 or 50..... so, .58, .72, .85 VF mag. you choose....
Click to expand...
Yes. 50mm.

Cheers,

R.
 
Short vs Long Diagonal

Short vs Long Diagonal

The "normal" is usually rule-of-thumbed as the diagonal of the frame. It has more to do with having a true-size/perspective print from the negative when held at "arm's length."

Year Zero 35mm cameras supposedly came with a 40-43mm focal length lens. That's the diagonal of the 24x36mm frame they finally "standardized" on (get a Nikon S & see what "standard" was!). If you make a square of 36x36mm, THAT diagonal is 50.9mm. Sound familiar? Ah for the days back in the Sixty/Seventies when the Herb Kepplers of our little world would agonize over what the "true" focal length and "full aperture" were for a lens. That, and the fact that "only 98.3% of the picture area is viewable in the pentaprism."

I want to make & peddle a gizmo for removing dust from the front element of pinhole lenses just to see how many sales I make.
 
For me normal is 35-40mm on a SLR or M. The ZM 35/2.8 Biogon-C is 37-38mm. Perfect, and it allows very accurate framing with the 35mm frame lines on my M6 0.85.
 
Roger Hicks said:
The classic definition of 'normal' is, as others have said, 'with a focal length equal to the negative diagonal'.

As soon as you vary enlargement size and viewing distance, this goes out of the window.

My 'standards' have included 35mm, 50mm and 58mm on full frame and 21mm and 50mm on an M8 (28mm and 67mm equivalent).

The best definition is "Whatever you're happy with."

When dealing with Leica Experts, remember the etymology of 'expert'. It comes from 'ex' meaning 'a has-been' and 'spurt' meaning 'a drip under pressure'.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

While I have heard that explanation many times. I am glad you tend to think differently when it comes to your personal "standard" lens. I prefer to think of a "normal" lens as the lens which emulates the eye in terms of spatial relations instead of field of view. It's seems to match the way I see, regardless of medium: 6x7, 6x, 35mm, APS-C. And for whatever reason, no matter the lens and field of view, nothing feels the same.

Yasujiro Ozu, the great Japanese film director, preferred the 50 so much that he used it almost exclusively. Now, he was working with vertically fed 35mm film, something closer to a 4x3 APS-C sized negative, so it wasn't even close to the length of the neg diag. Instead of switching lenses, he built his sets specifically for the 50 lens (in order to achieve the field of view he needed). The reason he specified is that it was the least distracting of all lenses--or, roughly, the most similar to human sight.
 
Samouraï said:
While I have heard that explanation many times. I am glad you tend to think differently when it comes to your personal "standard" lens. I prefer to think of a "normal" lens as the lens which emulates the eye in terms of spatial relations instead of field of view. It's seems to match the way I see, regardless of medium: 6x7, 6x, 35mm, APS-C. And for whatever reason, no matter the lens and field of view, nothing feels the same.

Yasujiro Ozu, the great Japanese film director, preferred the 50 so much that he used it almost exclusively. Now, he was working with vertically fed 35mm film, something closer to a 4x3 APS-C sized negative, so it wasn't even close to the length of the neg diag. Instead of switching lenses, he built his sets specifically for the 50 lens (in order to achieve the field of view he needed). The reason he specified is that it was the least distracting of all lenses--or, roughly, the most similar to human sight.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, but 35mm cine film in a cine camera uses a negative area of 24 x 18 mm, exactly half the size of a 35mm standard negative in still cameras and with an aspect ratio of 4:3. It was called the Academy Standard wasn't it?

Anyway, a 50mm on that would be like a 90 to 100mm lens, hardly the FoV of our eyes...

But, my money is on Oskar Barnack designing his camera body and looking for an off the shelf lens to fit it. They existed at the time and there's no reason to suggest he'd lumber himself with lens design as well as a new body etc. As he worked for Carl Zeiss at one time he could easily have use CZ lens in a new mount he'd had machined for it and his prototype.

Which reminds me that CZ's patent for the Tessar would have run out by the 1920's and I wonder where that led...

Regards, David

PS And wasn't there a magazine article in the 1930's looking at pictures of a road with telegraph poles etc, taken with all the Leitz lenses so that they could chose the most natural looking one? It was the 50mm if I remember correctly.
 
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