New Leica Images

I hope the moderators will forgive this blatant plug, but I have posted <a href="http://www.vothphoto.com/spotlight/articles/forgotten-lens.htm">new content</a> to my site that features some Leica M photography.

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This article, a paean to the classic 50mm lens, is not strictly targetted at Leica users, though some of you may find it interesting as it probably validates your own approaches to photography.

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Enjoy.

Another great article. Keep them coming! I am going to bookmark this

and refer all the people at photo.net who ask the "which 28-300 cheap

zoom should i buy question" to read it - they'll probably ingnore

your advice because a plain 50 isn't as sexy as a 28-300 in their

eyes, but at least when they finally realize their 28-300 isn't very

good they'll know better.

Nice Gary. I posted a link to your article on my Nikon site. There

are a lot of people there that never saw a lens faster than f/4-5.6.

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Those nice side-lit photos in your article might make them stow that

pop-up flash and re-think things.

Gary - on my browser (NS v4.7) some of your images float over the

accompanying text, making the essay impossible to read in parts.<P>

Also, might be time to start photographing different topics and

subjects? I know every parent is deeply fascinated by their own

children, but don't assume this for the public at large. :?)

Thanks. I'll look into the Netscape/Unix issue. Probably had my

target browser settings configured incorrectly. (I think I know the

problem.)

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Andrew, yes, the pix in this article are of my family (although only

one image in the Noctilux review was), but my specific interest in

this piece was in helping less experienced photographers understand

there is something better than a slow zoom lens for making pictures

of their own families. For other subject matter, feel free to

explore my gallery.

Very nice article and very valuable demonstration Gary�

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Smack on the problem in the controversy between buying a bad zoom

lens or a valuable 50mm so called �standard lens� on a 35 mm camera.

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However, and as useful as can be a 50 mm on what base was it called

a standard lens?

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The truth is a standard lens for any format is generally considered

more or less equal the diagonal of the format in focal length. In

terms of angle covered (diagonally) it is always more or less

equivalent to 45°. But everything is widely approximate here. The

diagonal of our 35 mm camera image is 43mm (not 50) and if I

correctly remember what angle was covered by a 43 mm it is something

between 50° (this value is the one covered by the Nikon 45mm lens)

and 55°� I assume nearer to 55°. It may explain why many

photographers prefers the 35mm than the 50 mm as their standard and

more useful lens (and why as aptly put by the author in his article

it sometimes give the impression to have a small tele-lens more than

a strictly standard one.

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In fact if we compare the angle covered by a 35 mm so 62° and the

angle covered by a 50 mm so 45° to the 55° (or so) covered by a 43

mm lens, We see the 50 mm covers about ten degrees less than the 43

mm and the 35 mm covers about 7° more. In practice, it seems we can

consider the 43 mm lens is more or less exactly in the middle in

between the field covered by the 35 mm and the one covered by the 50

mm. So the 50 mm appears a bit in excess in field reduction form the

field covered by a lens having exactly the diagonal of the format

and the 35 mm being a tad in excess in increase of the field covered

by this �ideal� standard lens.

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So to say, the 35 mm �wide angle� is in fact as near to the ideal 43

mm �real standard� as is the �short tele-lens� of 50 mm� And it

explains why the 35 mm doesn�t show much of the characteristic

modifications of the perspective which characterizes the true wide

angles. As it explains why the perspective offered by the 50 mm lens

is considered standard vision like despite it is in fact a very

short tele-lens.

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The choice between the two lenses as a �standard by defect� is

however more a personal affair than something which could be

demonstrated scientifically. Each of them has its own plus and

minus. For example the increased DOF of a 35 mm may be a liability

or an asset depending on the circumstances and the required effect.

In the excellent shots accompanying the article, I remarked Gary has

carefully and wisely used for its subject the absence of DOF to

isolate the main subject without definitely eliminating the context.

To me it is perhaps where the 50 mm is the most cleverly used and

can give the observer the desire to buy or to re-use a 50 mm.

Despite the author refers continually to the SLR cameras of wider

diffusion than our rangefinders, it seems to me this way to use a 50

mm is really a rangefinder camera business. This article really

gives me the desire to buy as soon as possible a 50mm Summicron� The

emphasize the author put on the indoor performances of these lens

(which combines the clever use of limited DOF and the necessities of

the ambient light level) is also very welcome. In a certain way it

confirms my reflection on the proper use of a 50mm as a mainly

indoor semi-selective lens (semi-selective as it permits to put the

emphasize on the subject properly without negating its environment).

By the way, I have the feeling the 75mm can do the same outdoors

when it is possible to have more distance between the camera and the

subject. But as far as I�m concerned (may be because I�m myopic and

see the things around more �wide angle� than a standard eye when I

wear my glasses) I�m still sticking to the 35 mm to render a subject

as seen with my eyes.

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The question of the link between the human vision and the so-called

standard lenses is also something subjected to debate. I remember

reading many years ago in a French magazine (Photo-Cine Revue), long

gone now, a very interesting article about the human vision (excepts

the perception of depth which is linked to the binocular � or if you

prefer stereoscopic � nature of it). From this article, it seems our

total angle of vision is far more than any usual wide angle (180° +)

but the angle we can see the things with maximum definition hardly

exceeds 30°� Hence, more or less the field covered by a 85 to 90 mm

lens. Of course we compensate for this limited high resolution field

by the movements of our eyes and the brain does the rest. But the

author of this article argued that one can legitimately call a 90 mm

a more natural lens than a 50mm when referring to the human eye

perception.

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May I join myself to some others requiring Gary to issue us many

more articles of this quality.

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François P. WEILL

Thankyou for the very informative webpage. It is people like you

that make surfing the net very interesting and...ADDICTIVE

Thanks for all the comments so far.

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Francois (and others): in no way should this article be construed as

an essay on the "best" focal length, particularly for Leica

shooters. I love the 35mm focal length which I prefer for

environmental portraits among other subjects!

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Re. the issue on what is a "normal" focal length: I agree this is

open to debate. I merely referred to it that way because it seemeed

the easiest way to convey information for a non-technical reader

(plus, this is how I remember all my basic texts on photography

describing it). Probably what is "normal" for any of us is the focal

length that best matches our creative vision.

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Good shooting.

Thanks again Gary,

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Now look what you've done :-)

I am now wondering if I should have a Summicron to join the Noct!

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Greg

Gary,

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Thanks for the excellent article. Just yesterday an experienced user

was wondering on photo.net if he should switch to primes from using

only AFS zooms! The article, with its pictures, speaks louder than

any mere discussion forum posting. Now we can all point to your

article to clinch an argument ;-)

Good pictures, Gary. They remind me of the work Ken Heyman did with

Margaret Mead on families worldwide.

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My Netscape 4.75 also 'stacks' the pictures over each other and over

text - but this also happens when I go to Steve Gandy's cameraquest

site on some pages. I was able to read enough to get the gist - which

is well-written and well-structured.

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Regarding the 'normality' of the 50mm lens - there are arguments/

research available that make the cases that any lens from a 28 to a 105

is "normal" for 35mm in terms of matching human visual perception - the

'diagonal of the film' concept is probably just as arbitrary as

Barnack's decision to choose the 50 (anybody know the history of how

the 50 WAS chosen?).

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Presumably Niepce and Daguerre had to make a choice of focal length for

their first cameras, with NO previous standards to work from except

artists' "cameras obscura" - I suspect they just found lenses already

available that projected an image the right size for their film format

and used 'em - regardless of whether they was 'wide', 'long', or

'normal' by present-day standards.

Gary, i think you have successfully conveyed the message to the

intended audience of your article. those people who critize the

images either didn't read the article, or they didn't understand

it...tough luck.

An excellent article Gary plus excellent pictures to convey the

message. Regards,

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Ed

Nicely done. I fwd'ed it to a friend who's in the mkt for a P&S and

can't decide between a zoom or a fixed focal length.

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Anything to complicate a decision, I always say...

Re. the browser issue: the page renders perfectly on my system using

Netscape 6.2.2. I don't, unfortunatley, have any older versions of

Netscape to try it with. (Anyone know where I can find an install

point for an older Netscape version?)

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FWIW, techically the page uses fairly standard table and cascading

style sheet tags that are *supposed* to be compatible with all

version 4 and later browsers... It's built with FrontPage, but I've

looked at the native HTML, and it looks okay to me. (I would like to

fix it though.)

Nevermind, I found the Netscape browser archive:

http://sillydog.webhanger.com/narchive/fulldata.html

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I'll experiment with this and see what I can do.

Some great comments, thank you.

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I did change the definition of "normal lens" from one based on angle

of view to one based on perspective, which is more what I meant.

(It's clear that the angle of view of the human eye cannot easily be

equated to that of any lens, because the reasons cited.)

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Update on the browser issue: unfortunately, I've determined that my

entire site is not being rendered properly by Netscape 4x (floating

graphics are not the only problem).

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The new Mozilla-based Netscape 6 handles it fine, as does IE. Since

the problems are specific to older versions of Netscape, I'm not

sure it is practical for me to fix (sorry). I've posted a disclaimer

and a link to the Netscape 6.2.2 install point. (It's actually quite

a nice piece of software.)

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Good shooting.

<I>The new Mozilla-based Netscape 6 handles it fine, as does IE. Since

the problems are specific to older versions of Netscape, I'm

not sure it is practical for me to fix (sorry). I've posted a

disclaimer and a link to the Netscape 6.2.2 install point. (It's

actually

quite a nice piece of software.)

</I><P>

I advise you to deal with this rather than just sweep it under the

"works fine for me" carpet as there are literally millions of users

with NS v4 browsers.<P>

The common standard for www developers is NS v4.7 & MSIE v5.<P>

(I write here wearing my professional html & cgi coder's hat...)