[Leica] 50mm lenses should be compulsory.

[jls at runbox.com (Jeffery Smith)]

I think you're right.

There is a great photo of a wooden sailing ship in a harbor. It was taken 
from a distance using a long tele. As a result, the "distance" is 
compressed, and the ship looks absolutely enormous compared to the 
buildings in the foreground. Had it been taken with a wide angle, it would 
have been miniscule in comparison to the buildings.

At 07:43 AM 5/19/2004, you wrote:

>Neil,
>
>Not trying to speak for Buzz but only for myself, a valid point I get from
>what he wrote might be exemplified as follows: if you take a photo with a
>15mm lens, you could certainly crop it to print the identical area covered
>by another photo taken with the same camera pointed in the same direction
>but with a 400mm lens.  Yet the two pictures would not be at all the same.
>In the cropped 15mm photo, the foreground would be exaggeratedly close and
>background objects exaggeratedly distant, whereas in the 400mm photo the
>distance between foreground and background objects would be exaggeratedly
>compressed.  I seem to recall hearing (or reading) somewhere that, for 35mm
>photography, an 85mm lens (or something in that neighborhood) produces
>pictures with a foreground-background relationship approximately the same as
>what's seen by the human eye.
>
>I think I'm right about that, but someone please correct me (i.e., educate
>me) if I were wrong.
>
>Art Peterson
>Alexandria, Virginia
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Beddoe, Neil [mailto:nbeddoe@lehman.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 7:32
>To: 'Leica Users Group'; 'Leica Users Group'
>Subject: RE: [Leica] 50mm lenses should be compulsory.
>
>
>" Lenses of different focal lengths do have
>characteristics, based on their focal lengths, other than getting more
>or less in the frame."
>
>I disagree.  Take a picture with a 50mm lens (or even a 21mm lens) and crop
>to the middle of the picture and you've got the same shot you would have got
>from the same spot with a 90mm lens(grain and DOF excluded).  You are right
>about my choice of lens though ( at least it made for  a provocative subject
>line).  I'm sure that if my M6 had come with a 35mm I'd be raving about
>that.  The point is that the lens you use is usually much less important
>than where you stand.
>
>Neil
>
>
>
>I am pleased that the 50mm lens worked for you, especially when it was
>your only lens.  However, I submit for your consideration that its being
>a 50mm lens had far less to do with your success than the discipline
>enforced by using only one lens.  It could have been a 35mm, it could
>have been a 90mm, but it is the fact of having only one lens that made
>you work harder at each picture you took.
>
>         Buzz Hausner
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org
>[mailto:lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf
>Of Beddoe, Neil
>Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 5:49 AM
>To: 'Leica Users Group'
>Subject: [Leica] 50mm lenses should be compulsory.
>
>
>As everyone knows, you don't alter the viewpoint when you switch to a
>wider
>or longer lens, you just get more or less in the frame.  In most cases,
>you
>can do this by walking forwards or backwards and at the same time see
>what
>changing perspective does to your shot which is much more interesting
>than
>just optically cropping the photograph.
>
>I like feet but I hate zooms.
>
>Neil
>
>
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