Who shoots mainly with a 50 or a 35?

[Evergreen States]

Walking through any city nowadays, it's impossible to get photos like Cartier-Bresson's because there's too much chaff. The streets are a jumble of loud typography and sign posts - and that's if you can see any of it for the amount of parked cars and traffic! - so it's rare I even try anything that passes as "street photography" now.

Fortunately, there has been over the last few years a shift in public and governmental awareness on the destructive impacts that planning around car infrastructure have wrought. Things are particularly bad in the US and Canada, but the problem exists in Europe as well. I've heard central Prague is choked with cars and a lot of what used to be housing is now AirBnbs for tourists. But as I said, there are places where activists and local governments have together started shifting away from investments in car infrastructure and more into cycling, walking and public transit. It can strike some as unthinkable, but plenty of places have closed down certain streets and districts to car traffic entirely. I've been to pedestrianized places such as Whistler Village in Canada and to a single block of 1st Ave in downtown Walla Walla which was closed during the pandemic and is now a pedestrianized plaza. They're honestly much nicer places to be, but one of the benefits is that bringing back conditions that are conducive to street life make street photography easier!

 

[Evergreen States]

That's good! The shape of the nose, forehead, eye socket, and the shape and standoff of glasses for your prescription, all together determine how well you can see through the M viewfinder. You are lucky.

Rangefinder shooter phrenology 🙃

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (color skopar 50mm f2.5) leica ll

Amsterdam, 2009

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (color skopar 50mm f2.5) leica ll

Nijverdal, 2009

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (summilux 50mm f1.4 v1 black) leica mp

Amsterdam, 2019

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

silver gelatine print (summilux 50mm f1.4) leica m3

Istanbul, 1985

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatine silver print (color skopar 50mm) leica m2

Amsterdam 2017

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

silver gelatine print (nikkor h 50mm f2) nikkormat ftn

Amsterdam 2016

Erik.

 

[boojum]

I started in 35mm with a 50mm f/3.5 Color-Skopar on a Vito II, my little icon to the left. Perhaps I have learned little or am unable to grow, or perhaps the 5cm/50mm is a fine compromise. I have a few good ones and a couple very good ones. They work for me. More than the field of view it is what is contained within the field of view that I must concentrate upon.

I am taking a trip in a week. I'll take an M-body with three 50's, maybe a 35 and a 28 for the PIxii. The X2D will get by on the XCD 55V, an approximate 40 in 35mm terms. It is all I have for the camera and seems to work well. But for the M-bodies I default to 50's.

 

[Erik van Straten]

It is very good to bring only one lens, otherwise you will have to think all the time about the question "which lens will I use". As a result, you don't take any photos at all. The lens is not important, the pictures are important.

Erik.

 

[pvdhaar]

It is very good to bring only one lens, otherwise you will have to think all the time about the question "which lens will I use". As a result, you don't take any photos at all. The lens is not important, the pictures are important.

Solid advice. The worst thing to do, I've experienced, is switch between two lenses between every shot and not getting into a flow.

 

[Bill Jones]

It is very good to bring only one lens, otherwise you will have to think all the time about the question "which lens will I use". As a result, you don't take any photos at all. The lens is not important, the pictures are important.

Erik

Yes, Eric,

It's good discipline and if you're shooting digital, err on the short side of focal lengths. Digitals are easy to crop and still have lots of pixels left for your composition. Personally I shoot high res cameras as they let me do lots of radical cropping in post, a single lens can really cover anything a 4X zoom or the equivalent range of primes could do without cropping. The one lens approach lets me shoot faster and get some shots I would otherwise miss.

Bill

 

[mfunnell]

It is very good to bring only one lens, otherwise you will have to think all the time about the question "which lens will I use". As a result, you don't take any photos at all. The lens is not important, the pictures are important.

Erik.

Erik - while I mostly agree with you here, I don't completely.

When I'm "out photographing" (which I'm really trying to do more of) I tend to take three different focal length lenses with me. Once I figure out what kind of photo I want to be taking (which might take me a while) I'll then put the 'correct' focal length lens on the camera and just won't change it while I'm taking 'that kind of photo' for exactly the reasons you say: if I worry about which lens to use, I might not take the photos I should.

However - I might cast about, at first, trying to figure out what kind of photo I'm taking that day, so it might take me a while to settle. But also, if I stop and change the type of photo I'm taking (eg. from more urban street kind of stuff, to more scenic kinds of views) I might change the lens I'm using to suit the different kinds of photos I then want to take. Maybe.

Just as a quick (and maybe not even good) example of this - I saw some nice light and clouds this evening, and I grabbed my camera (which happened to have a 50mm lens on it at the time) and took this photo:


..but I decided the field of view was more restricted than what I wanted, so I changed to a 35mm lens (but not a 28mm - I decided that was too wide for what I wanted) and took a bunch of photos with that. This is the one I liked best, of those:


Now, you might not agree with my choice - but at least it was deliberate. Once I changed to the 35mm lens, I did stick with it. (I also put the 50mm lens back on afterwards: that's more likely to be suited to the photos I want to take tomorrow, though I am taking a 35mm and 28mm just in case. But whichever of those I use I'm likely to stick with once I have chosen.)

...Mike

 

[Godfrey]

You've all convinced me to stick the Pentax-L 43mm on the M10-M for a day or three, again, and have some fun with it.
Thank you!

G

Foot Steps By Pavement Crack - Santa Clara 2022
Leica M10 Monochrom + Pentax SMC 43mm f/1.9 Special
Green filter
ISO 250 @ f/4 @ 1/60​

 

[Evergreen States]

It is very good to bring only one lens, otherwise you will have to think all the time about the question "which lens will I use". As a result, you don't take any photos at all. The lens is not important, the pictures are important.

Erik.

I generally agree, but I'm not averse to bringing two lenses with me. Much of the time, I bring a 23mm and 35mm for my Fuji, as I tend to take the same types of pictures with 35 and 50mm equivalent focal lengths, just one gives me more in the frame and makes it easier to zone focus. But where it gets difficult for me is when the focal lengths have a great deal of spacing. A 14mm lens and and a 60mm (or 21mm and 90mm in 135 format) require very different ways of seeing and I simply cannot do both at once. I had a rough time going to Whistler in 2019 with a 23mm and 60mm and my X-Pro1 because it seemed like the wrong lens was always on the camera. I did use the 60mm and even got some good pictures with it, but most of the trip I used the 23mm.

I was able to successfully take the 14mm and 35mm lenses and X-Pro3 on a trip to the WSU campus in Pullman, Washington this spring. But most of my time I used the 35mm and only used the 14mm in a couple places. But I'm okay with that. I had to relieve myself of the pressure of having to use the super wide enough and just try to use it where it was necessary.

On my second trip to Whistler, I took my X-Pro1 and 35mm ƒ/1.4 lens and came home with much better pictures than my 2019 trip with the 23 and 60. In 2019 I had gone to Portland with just the X-Pro1 and 23mm ƒ/2. Keeping it simple works best for me!

 

[boojum]

It is very good to bring only one lens, otherwise you will have to think all the time about the question "which lens will I use". As a result, you don't take any photos at all. The lens is not important, the pictures are important.

Erik.

Are you speaking for yourself or advancing a blanket rule? I take exception to your speaking for me. You have no idea what are my plans and how I will execute them. Until you do you might want to withhold advice. I am amused at the arrogance so easily displayed.

Perhaps you meant to say that this is the advice you follow because it works for you? Perhaps? To propose it as a rule for all makes as much sense as we should all shoot at f/5.6. Sheesh.

 

[CMur12]

When I have gone to a site to take photos, I have typically brought more than one lens.

I start with one lens, exploring the subject with that focal length and that vision until I'm satisfied with the effort. After that, I may change to another focal length and repeat the process. I don't switch back and forth.

- Murray

 

[Erik van Straten]

Just think it over. I´m very serious. 50 years experience. Think about your pictures, not about your lenses.

Erik.

 

[boojum]

For my Dutch friend and any others, here is my plan: I will leave Ely, NV, in the morning heading west with the sun behind me. I will arrive in Fallon around noon, it is a 250 mile run (400 KM) across a high speed road through high desert. I will drive back from Fallon to Ely, with the sun behind me. I will do this three times. OK, now for my Dutch friend and any others who like to kibbitz, Day One - Amotal, Day Two - Bertele, Day Three - CZJ 5cm f/1.5. X2D with XCD 55V all days and possibly the Pixii for B&W.

US 50 across Nevada is named The Loneliest Road in America (U.S. Route 50 in Nevada - Wikipedia). This is the road I will travel. I first crossed it in '82 on a '67 BMW R69S on a coast to coast trip from Connecticut to California and have been back a number of times, each way, because of the stark, high desert beauty. The weather will be in the comfortable 70's during the day. On the 29th there is a full moon so evening desert shots will be possible for a few nights.

Like it or not, this is my plan. And I'm sticking to it. ;o)

 

[boojum]

Just think it over. I´m very serious. 50 years experience. Think about your pictures, not about your lenses.

Erik.

70 years experience here. MYOB You have offered a lot of unsolicited advice. Few things are more disturbing than "people who mean well." I'll leave it at that.