Lens Flare #46 - Going Normal
43-50mm Image Dump
40-50mm
I am a firm believer in sticking to a single focal length for a few months and getting used to it thoroughly. While 35mm is my go-to allrounder, last year I worked with a 28mm lens exclusively for a few months, which was an eye-opening experience. More recently, I have gone in the other direction and have limited myself to the 50mm focal length. However, I widened this to include 43mm, since I have acquired a Leica Q3 43 (amazing lens, annoying handling) which I don’t want to sit on a shelf. This is still close enough to 50mm and is widely considered the “normal” or “standard” focal length, mimicking what our eyes see.
The standard lens of around 50mm used to be the norm, and like many photographers who started in the film days, this was all I had at first. Therefore, (re-)adaption to this focal length was fairly smooth. Whilst I still believe that 35mm is the most versatile focal length, I often crop my images to a 40mm equivalent, and the photos I like most in my collection are all shot at around 40-50mm.
In this post, I want to share some recent images using the standard lens, shot in and around Valencia.
The Images
Cats
While it is cliché that amateur photographers tend to use their expensive gear for snapshots of their cats, I take my cat photography seriously. I find the standard lens ideal for this.
Like it all, and like to do the same with my 50mm1.8… plus it’s lighter than my 24-70 2.8L lens. Like your pics, except the cats… but that’s just me… 🫢
There is a short and interesting range between 40 and 60 mm. Discussion is also amusing because pro and con reasons are often good. 40 was the lens used always in all cheap cameras of the past; we could tell it wants but it can't because not enough dop etc. but it's a really interesting focus length as you say. In the opposite end 58 mm lenses made by Nikon and Voightlader (perhaps more) aren't usual but seemingly interesting too; I never owned one but I'm shooting sometimes APS-C 40=60 and I like it very much