50mm Photographers

Rapscallion said:
If you look closely you will see that the photographer moved for each picture...
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Just a lot! The 100mm image must have been taken at six times the distance of the 17mm shot (100/17=5.9).

It's an interesting comparison, but the text is incomplete without stating the shooting distance, and very misleading as a result.
 
Elliott Erwitt used a 50mm for most of his street work.

As for 50mm being normal, I always think of 50mm as the FOV you get when you look at a single object within the sharpest part of your vision, all the other focal lengths are just steps forward (or back) from that baseline.
 
50mm to me seems ideal as it seems to be similar to what I see when I look at something myself.

The human eye is capable of seeing almost 180 degrees but the 50mm is obviously a lot narrower FOV and takes into consideration that peripheral vision is not at all detailed.

If I could only ever use 1 lens this would be it.
 
A 'normal' lens is one that has a focal length roughly equal to the diagonal of the film / sensor of the camera it's attached to. That's what I was always told anyhow..

As for finding people who shoot with it, best bet to see a lot of pictures would be to search on Flickr or similar. Not famous photographers - but lots of photos taken with that focal length for you to analyse.
 
I always thought that 75mm/80mm was supposed to be the ultimate portrait perspective for 35mm/FF digital lenses, which explains why poor people like myself favour a "nifty fifty" on a crop sensor.
 
I think FOV comparisons with human eye are not really possible due to the peripheral vision we have and how that comes into what we see or not.
I have tried many lenses but find that for me a 23 on crop is perfect. I see a scene and the lens captured all I want to see. When using anything more it was always frustrating and OI never got everything in that I wanted and was forever walking backwards.
 
ernesto said:
I think FOV comparisons with human eye are not really possible due to the peripheral vision we have and how that comes into what we see or not.
I have tried many lenses but find that for me a 23 on crop is perfect. I see a scene and the lens captured all I want to see. When using anything more it was always frustrating and OI never got everything in that I wanted and was forever walking backwards.
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I think that you are talking about a slightly different thing here. You may find the 23mm lens perfect for landscape photography, so a wide angle zoom may be the best lens for your needs.
However, if you were into portrait photography, then a 23mm lens would not be the most flattering to use, because of its perspective and the way in which that lens views certain subjects.
 
I am happy with the 23 for general all round use. Take the point about portraits but I don't do those. For general use I just find the slightly wider lens covers what I need more often than the longer options. Always a compromise of course with using a single prime but one I am happy with.
 
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