50mm focal length

["jose luis gonzalez" <jlg@redestb.es>]

What follows is a quote of a article by Bob Schwalberg:
"A 50 mm lens is also superb for environmental portraits that relate =

people to their surround and who they are by showing what they do and =

where they do. According to conventional wisdom the 50 mm is no supposed =

to be so great for formal head end shoulders portraiture, which is =

considered to lie within the domain of 85 to 105 medium telephoto =

lenses. Theo Kisselbach. the late director of the Leica School of =

Weztlar began to think otherwise in the 1960s. Kiba ( As he was known to =

his friends )pointed out that modern films and developers are at least =

twice as good as their inmediate ancestors, but the 90 mm lens ( the =

Leitz medium focal lentgh ) is less than twice as long as a standar 50 =

mm lens.

To test this, he made many portraits and other medium tele style shots =

using his 50mm lens, but conmposing with 90mm framelines of his Leica =

M.Because his 90 shot with 50 pictures were shot from yhe longer 90 mm =

lens distances,the perspective was unchanged, and the high quality of =

modern films proved that despite the extra enlargement needed to produce =

equal sized prints,there was virtually no loss of quality. Kiba=B4s point =

=ADwhich wasn=B4t much liked by some people in the sales department=ADwas t=
hat =

a 50mm can easyly replace a 90mm, thanks to progress in photograpic =

chemistry and improvements of lens design and manufacture"
This article was written 20 years ago. =

Lets beguin to draw our own conclusions

Jose Luis Gonzalez