Erik van Straten
Veteran
This was done by Cartier-Bresson with a 35mm.
Erik.
Erik.
Why HCB uses a 50mm lens
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Evergreen States
Francine Pierre Saget (they/them)
Many of his pictures in City and Landscapes were very obviously taken with lenses longer than 50mm. Many with a 90mm at least. He also used the 90mm extensively in India. He was also said to have used a Leica Minilux after "retiring" to paint, though I don't think I've seen anything that was taken with that.
Nothing wrong with using a 50mm as one's home focal length. I think his body of work demonstrates his ability to use it well. 50mm is my home focal length, though I will often use a 35mm or 90mm and even try a 21mm sometimes.
Nothing wrong with using a 50mm as one's home focal length. I think his body of work demonstrates his ability to use it well. 50mm is my home focal length, though I will often use a 35mm or 90mm and even try a 21mm sometimes.
Dralowid
Michael
I wonder....it seems to me that the natural choice in the 1930s for a second lens, after 50mm, was 90mm.
Evergreen States
Francine Pierre Saget (they/them)
This is one reason why I have little to no use for wide angle lenses. I have a 14mm for my Fuji that I used to use at indoor events like house parties and gallery exhibitions but I mostly stopped going to those with COVID. In much of the US and Canada, our urban landscape is designed for people to travel in private cars. Pedestrians are an afterthought and it shows because the only people on the sidewalks are either too poor to drive or purposefully exercising. Everything is very far away, set back behind vast parking lots. And everything from the McMansions to the strip malls to the streets and parking lots is unbearably ugly. There is zero thought or care put into making these places people would enjoy spending time in. Just buy your sh*t and go home.
I manage to do street photography here. It is possible. But it's much less pleasant than doing it in a city or even one of the old fashioned downtowns that still exist but would be illegal to build new today. Because of the distance and the need to keep the ugly out of the frame, I find that a 35-50-90 kit suits me best, with 50s and 35s coming out most often.
Richard G
Veteran
And then there was the M3. So a 50. Did he use an M2 at all? Wonderful surveillance beyond the frame lines of the 50. And when did we finally get an f2 35mm lens…? An f1.4 came in the 1960s, long after the Zeiss and Leica 1.5 50s. Forced to use a 35mm lens I think Henri would have managed. He’d have liked the compactness of something wider.
sjones
Established
OK, you're really going to need to explain this (unless, of course, you don't want to), because it sounds like (and I could be very wrong) that you're saying that it is your authoritative ruling that a 50mm (or normal FoV) cannot be used effectively for street photography (aside from HCB proving otherwise), and that anyone who disagrees with your absolute edict must be trolling. Is this what you mean? Also, if you're asserting that a normal lens was previously fine, but that modern exigencies absolutely and unconditionally render normal rendering ineffectual for street photography (in all of its millions of semantical variations), then I reckon I, myself, just don't care about modern expectations; you know, like the ones that would criticize Joni Mitchell for not using auto-tune. If both of these assumptions, and they are just that, are incorrect, then, well, never mind. But heads up, should you even care (and it's really your prerogative to not have to care in the greater scheme of things), you'll need to provide further elucidation. Thank you. Now, I'm off to make some wet prints of photos I took with my 50mm...on the streets...of a city. Call it what you will. Bye now.
ptpdprinter
Veteran
I took a look at HCB's headstone, and it doesn't say "I used a 50mm lens." so maybe it wasn't that important after all.
aizan
Veteran
He's describing the technical and pictorial aspects of a capital "m" Modern visual style. Everything within DOF, intentionally composed, tightly controlled to create the illusion of having no effects, no subjectivity, no bias.
Small wonder that the counter culture adopted "effects" such as wider lenses, jarring composition, shallow DOF, blurring, and so on.
Small wonder that the counter culture adopted "effects" such as wider lenses, jarring composition, shallow DOF, blurring, and so on.
Erik van Straten
Veteran
He was an artist, not a photojournalist.
Erik.
Erik.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
That photo speaks so well of France. I have loved it since The Decisive Moment was first printed. And I understood it completely after working for my uncle for two and one half years in France. Truly the photo shows how the French have made an art of life. How many times I had seen the proletarian 2CV's stop just before noon and seemingly a dozen French explode from them with wicker picnic baskets, table cloths, wine bottles, the goods of charcuteries and ample baguettes and fruits and cheeses to enact exactly what is seen in that photo. That photo is not a picture of folks in France, it is France. Bresson could capture it.
Erik van Straten
Veteran
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe. The great example was Manet's painting, but this one is much nicer.
Erik.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
C'est ça, exactement. Un dejeuner parfait a côté de la fleuve. My Dutch friend's comment on the French? "Why did they get all the good land?" ;o) That photo does capture so well the idiom of France. Cameras are magic, some of us are better magicians than others. That is how it is in life.
I gave solid information. You gave your bloated opinion.
kbg32
neo-romanticist
Opinions about lenses is personal. HC-B used what he used because it corresponded to HIS vision of the world. Everyone else need not apply. To argue here about what is the best focal length is mute. Enjoy your image making no matter what you use.
telenous
Well-known
It's an argument that is made often, i.e. everything in photography is an effect, including the unadorned, 'straight' style of modernism. For after all, the decision to raise the camera to the eye the specific moment that you do, the framing, the choice of shutter speed, etc., are all choices that impact the purported mechanical/objective nature of the photograph.
But there may still be room for a distinction between styles of photography. There's photography where you can rework backwards the original scene and there's photography where it becomes increasingly difficult or impossible to do that. If everything were an impossible-to-work-backwards-to-the-actual-scene effect, there wouldn't be any point in taking forensic or dental photographs. They 'd be useless. But they aren't.
You may be opinionated, you may be making use of some of the 'effects' photography makes available to you (framing, choice of subject matter) and still maintain accuracy of representation. I think that s the implicit distinction Cartier-Bresson makes. He doesn't say so in the quoted text but that's what he's driving at (I think). The choice of the 50mm lens, for the reasons he states, makes only a modest contribution to that style (and only comparatively to other focal lengths) but, apparently, he still considered it important enough.
Ccoppola82
Well-known
this is exactly what I was going to say. A little backstory. I started photography as a means to take reference photos for my landscape oil painting. I had just gotten into photography and my friends that were into photography offered the advice of WIDER IS BETTER. So, I started my first 6 months or so shooting everything as wide as I could (16mm or so). Once winter came and it was time to settle into actually PAINTING, the photos I had taken on my travels were completely unusable. I didn’t understand perspective distortion at the time and after wasting hours on 2 paintings, I just could not get them to look good. This forced me to totally reevaluate what photography is TO ME and break it into more specific genres that required different tools. It’s been said that 50mm is "what the eye sees" and I agree with this in a front to back, foreground/background sense more so than side to side. I think peripheral my vision extends to 28ish. So, for pure pictorial, composition based photography that is a "hang it on the wall" image, imho the 50mm is king. For photojournalistic purposes I think the exaggerated perspective of something like a 28 lends itself to a viewer feeling more like part of the scene and gets a better sense of the action. For this storytelling type photography I think it’s effective and what I use a lot documenting my sons life. Also, something like a 28 offers zone focusing for quick reaction that whereas a 50 is more calculated. I personally feel a 28/50 pair is perfect because I can cover both types of photography. I think this is the most interesting thread I’ve seen on any forum in a while.
Erik van Straten
Veteran
What is typical for Cartier-Bressons early work, is the use of the Vidom viewfinder. A Vidom gives a mirror-wrong image. Many painters judge their work by looking at it through a mirror. This is especially effective for composition. Composition was Cartier-Bresson's forte, even more than choosing the right moment to shoot.
Erik.
Erik.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
^^^^^^^ Interesting. A Rolleiflex would be a natural or an early SLR for this effect.
telenous
Well-known
He expressed a distaste for the square frame, so Rolleiflexes (or any 6x6 TLR) were out. An even remoter possibility was his using (as in seriously, not just trying out) an SLR. Lack of framelines, mirror blackout and vibration, they were not his thing.
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
HCB's first Leica 1a (Model A) No. 20562:
