Nifty fifty question....

tiny73

tiny73

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Tim
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OK, be gentle with me, first proper post (aside from saying hello) :D

If everyone should own a 50mm lens in their stable then why don't Canon (or Nikon but i don't have one of those...) or Sigma/Tamron/Tokina produce an exact 50mm lens for cropped sensors? i.e. a 31.25mm focal length for canon on 1.6x?

I know a 30mm is effectively there, or a 28mm, or a 35mm but none of them are quite exact are they?


Should i get out more? Am i overthinking this? :thinking: (or worse am i just completely wrong, or incorrect i should say, I know i'm very wrong.....)

cheers
Tim
 
Tim, The 50mm lens is perfect as it is, a 50mm equiv in 35mm terms would be a different beast altogether.

Grab yourself a nifty fifty for £80 and explore the posibilities. Look after it and sell it on when you outgrow it and grab aN f1.4!!

Oh, yes and stop thinkiing too much, get out and get shooting!!
 
phototuition said:
Oh, yes and stop thinkiing too much, get out and get shooting!!
Click to expand...

When two people tell you you're drunk; lie down :D

Been thinking about a nifty fifty to go on hols with so may just take your advice on this one....
 
Bought one but just can't bring myself to use it regularly; sits in the bag unused most of the time. My 85mm f/1.8 gets more of an airing because it's a much more useful focal length. Think 35mm will be my next buy and sell the fifty....
 
What makes the 50 so great is that its what you see.
Thats true if its a crop body or if its a ff.
You can (pretty much) guess exactly what the picture is going to look by looking at it without the view finder. and cropping it with your hands.
its just that if its a ff the box is bit bigger :)
I have a 50mm 1.8 and a 28mm 1.8. The 50 gets a lot more use
 
"What makes the 50 so great is that its what you see."

I know that's what people say but I've never really understood why as we have a very wide field of view, almost 180 deg horiz and something less vert. It's true that we see a smaller field of view better in the centre and to an extent concentrate on that but we certainly don't ignore the rest.

Personally I find 50mm a bit too tight on APS-C and 30mm neither wide nor tight. Life wearing blinkers to limit us to 50mm (or 30mm APS-C) would be annoying, for me anyway, and maybe that's why my most used zoom on APS-C is a 12-24mm.
 
My 50mm is 50mm on my camera :thumbs:

Seriously though, the Nikon 35mm is close enough and better than calling it a 33 1/3mm lens. This is made specifically for the crop sensor cameras as a 50mm equivalent just as you suggest.

I adore the 50mm lens :D
 
I bought the nifty fifty as my first prime.. I wanted a faster lens for low light and it was cheap, reliable and despite the rather plasticky build it gave excellent results.

However. I found that every time I saw a shot I was lifting the camera (40D) and finding I had to take a few steps backwards to get the shot framed the way I saw it. I can even remember the precise photo when I realised what I was doing and how awkward it was

Within a few weeks I had myself the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and it's rarely been off the camera since. I see something, I lift the camera and the frame matches what my eye saw.


Must be the weather.. this is the third thread on TP this evening I've sung the praises of the 30 1.4..
 
A lot of lenses aren't necessarily accurately "measured" anyway so the extra couple of mm here or there really isn't going to make that much difference unless you're talking really wide. Just have a look at a few multi lens reviews, there are some suspicious lenses out there that don't match their similarly lengthed brothers... :lol:

So just get a 28, 30 or 35 as they may very well be just off enough that they are actually "50mm". :p
 
My camera has a 1.3x crop sensor so I'd need a 38mm lens. Wait a minute, that's nearly a standard focal length! What were those clever chaps at Canon thinking about.
 
woof woof said:
"What makes the 50 so great is that its what you see."

I know that's what people say but I've never really understood why as we have a very wide field of view, almost 180 deg horiz and something less vert. It's true that we see a smaller field of view better in the centre and to an extent concentrate on that but we certainly don't ignore the rest.

Personally I find 50mm a bit too tight on APS-C and 30mm neither wide nor tight. Life wearing blinkers to limit us to 50mm (or 30mm APS-C) would be annoying, for me anyway, and maybe that's why my most used zoom on APS-C is a 12-24mm.
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Just to expand on what you said about the human FOV, woof woof :):

Personally, I think that the focal length issue has more to do with background compression and how foreground and background objects look in relation to one another :|.

If you've ever used a really long telephoto lens (300mm+) to photograph one person in a crowd so that their whole body length fills the frame (for example), you've probably noticed how the people in the back ground of the picture look almost as big as the main subject, even though they might be a long way behind that person. Conversely, if you walked right up to that same person and photographed them with a 17mm focal length lens so that (again) their whole body length filled the frame, the bits of the people that you could see in the crowd behind would appear much, much smaller :thinking:.

One common misunderstanding is that 35mm (or thereabouts) on a (1.5x) crop sensor is "the same" as 50mm on a full-frame sensor. Actually, 35mm is 35mm and 50mm is 50mm - it's just that with 35mm on a small sensor, when standing at a fixed distance, your main subject fills the frame in (roughly) the same way as it would if you were using a 50mm lens on a full frame sensor and standing in the same place. :|. What differs between the two photographs is how big the background appears. At 35mm, there is a wider background (i.e. objects are smaller) - at 50mm, the background area is reduced and the elements in it appear a little bit bigger.

From what I've read, 50mm gives a fair representation of the way the human eye sees this foreground/background relationship, but it varies according to a number of other factors. Personally, I find that 60-70mm gives a better rendition of what I see in a lot of cases :shrug:.

Just my $0.02 ;)
 
You should go out and get one immediately - best £80 you'll spend. However, it is really cheaply made - I'm onto my 3rd one in a few years.



tiny73 said:
OK, be gentle with me, first proper post (aside from saying hello) :D

If everyone should own a 50mm lens in their stable then why don't Canon (or Nikon but i don't have one of those...) or Sigma/Tamron/Tokina produce an exact 50mm lens for cropped sensors? i.e. a 31.25mm focal length for canon on 1.6x?

I know a 30mm is effectively there, or a 28mm, or a 35mm but none of them are quite exact are they?


Should i get out more? Am i overthinking this? :thinking: (or worse am i just completely wrong, or incorrect i should say, I know i'm very wrong.....)

cheers
Tim
Click to expand...
 
Naboo32 said:
Just to expand on what you said about the human FOV, woof woof :):

Personally, I think that the focal length issue has more to do with background compression and how foreground and background objects look in relation to one another :|.

If you've ever used a really long telephoto lens (300mm+) to photograph one person in a crowd so that their whole body length fills the frame (for example), you've probably noticed how the people in the back ground of the picture look almost as big as the main subject, even though they might be a long way behind that person. Conversely, if you walked right up to that same person and photographed them with a 17mm focal length lens so that (again) their whole body length filled the frame, the bits of the people that you could see in the crowd behind would appear much, much smaller :thinking:.

One common misunderstanding is that 35mm (or thereabouts) on a (1.5x) crop sensor is "the same" as 50mm on a full-frame sensor. Actually, 35mm is 35mm and 50mm is 50mm - it's just that with 35mm on a small sensor, when standing at a fixed distance, your main subject fills the frame in (roughly) the same way as it would if you were using a 50mm lens on a full frame sensor and standing in the same place. :|. What differs between the two photographs is how big the background appears. At 35mm, there is a wider background (i.e. objects are smaller) - at 50mm, the background area is reduced and the elements in it appear a little bit bigger.

From what I've read, 50mm gives a fair representation of the way the human eye sees this foreground/background relationship, but it varies according to a number of other factors. Personally, I find that 60-70mm gives a better rendition of what I see in a lot of cases :shrug:.

Just my $0.02 ;)
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I think you have falling into the trap many do with regards to focal length
The focal length of a lens does NOT alter the perspective.
The only thing that will change the perspective is your position, no matter what lens you use the view will have the same perspective I think you will find that your 50mm on FF and 35mm on crop will be both the same, because as you say you’re in the same place.
 
The reason most people buy a 'nifty' 50 (usually an f/1.8) is that they're dirt cheap...and as such it's a good General-Purpose lens to carry around and play with.

I and a few others use the f/1.4 which is far from 'nifty' at about £250.
It also sits mostly unused in my bag (gets dragged out for the occasional 'street' portrait session, or when I need an extra stop or two of light) with my 35mm f/2 and 85mm f/1.4 getting far more use. Those two are not particularly 'nifty' either at £200 and £600 respectively...
I too find that the 35mm equates to my 'normal' angle of view far better than 50mm which is way too tight for a general-purpose lens...
 
woof woof said:
"What makes the 50 so great is that its what you see."

I know that's what people say but I've never really understood why as we have a very wide field of view,
Click to expand...

It's not about FOV, it's about objects appearing lifesize and having the correct-ish perspective. Perspective-wise, a 50mm (on full frame) doesn't massively distort objects near and far like a zoom does (squashes them up) or a wide angle does (pushes them apart).

What I like about fifties is the majority of them are nice and fast without a huge price tag.
 
Chaz Photos said:
I think you have falling into the trap many do with regards to focal length
The focal length of a lens does NOT alter the perspective.
The only thing that will change the perspective is your position, no matter what lens you use the view will have the same perspective I think you will find that your 50mm on FF and 35mm on crop will be both the same, because as you say you’re in the same place.
Click to expand...

Obviously you would have to change your position relative to the main subject in order to get them to appear the same size in the frame at very different focal lengths (as in my first example ;)). Therefore you are changing your actual perspective - that's true and that's what I said.

In my second example, where I assumed that a 35mm on a crop sensor would yield a 'frame filling' subject at the same distance as a 50mm on a full frame sensor would, but the background would look different, I think that you're probably right actually Chaz :thinking: - it ought to make no difference if you're stood on the same spot. Sorry, my bad :thumbsdown:! I'll try this out myself when I get home, but for now I'd like to withdraw my earlier remark.

I guess that what I was really trying to get across was that there is a phenomenon called 'compression', which exists with images shot at very long focal lengths and that there is an apparent expansion of the background area in very wide angle shots, neither of which look 'natural' to the human eye/brain. Furthermore, these factors are directly related to focal length and the associated unusual perspectives which they afford.

'Medium' focal lengths seem more normal to us, as I suppose that they are more typical of the viewing distances (and therefore the perspectives) that we associate with most objects (i.e. we don't see very distant objects as large objects, unless using magnification, and we don't normally jam our faces up against objects and then peer at all of the tiny things behind them :D).

I think that I'm down to stating the obvious now, so I'll just leave it there I think ;).
 
What Chaz says is correct. perspective is a function of camera to subject distance, not the focal length. With shorter focal lengths you must use closer to achieve the same framing, and when you move closer objects distort, as you have correctly suggested, Andy.

Case in point; take a wide angle lens and pop it on your camera, set it at the widest setting, and target an object in the room. Walk towards it, and home in on it until you're almost touching it with the lens. The closer you get, the more it will distort. Then move away from it again to watch the distortion go away.

'Medium' focal lengths seem more normal to us because zoom compression isn't there, and objects appear relative to each other approximately as they do to the human eyes.
 
tiny73 said:
OK, be gentle with me, first proper post (aside from saying hello) :D

If everyone should own a 50mm lens in their stable then why don't Canon (or Nikon but i don't have one of those...) or Sigma/Tamron/Tokina produce an exact 50mm lens for cropped sensors? i.e. a 31.25mm focal length for canon on 1.6x?

I know a 30mm is effectively there, or a 28mm, or a 35mm but none of them are quite exact are they?


Should i get out more? Am i overthinking this? :thinking: (or worse am i just completely wrong, or incorrect i should say, I know i'm very wrong.....)

cheers
Tim
Click to expand...

Whilst most people in the thread are correct, the reason it is recommended is because it is the cheapest fast lens available which opens up a lot of different approaches to photography (playing with depth of field, specifically) - especially compared to stodgy kit lenses.

Obviously it's a good length, but really anything between ~35-85mm would be equally acceptable for the purpose this 50mm is recommended for if they were as fast and similarly priced.

So no, it doesn't matter that Canon haven't made a version of the 50mm specifically for crop cameras!
 
Its good because it's fast and cheap and it's a cracking length for portrait photography and excellent for strobist portraiture :)
 
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