Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/19

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Subject: [Leica] 50mm lenses should be compulsory.
From: jls at runbox.com (Jeffery Smith)
Date: Wed May 19 06:11:05 2004
References: <2906535AB89CD71199C70002A513ADBD0898A59D@exlon05b.lehman.com>

Yikes, I thought all of the perspective control problems in shooting 
buildings could be traced to a wide angle lens causing the roof to be 
overly small, giving you a trapezoid effect. Don't wide angles distort 
things, causing converging parallels?

Jeffery

At 08:05 AM 5/19/2004, you wrote:
>No, light doesn't go round corners. Try it. Take a photo with a 35mm lens
>then, from the same place, take one with a 90mm lens. Crop the centre of the
>35mm shot and it will appear identical to the 90mm shot or 2000mm shot for
>that matter (but the grain would be pretty big).   Perspective is determined
>only by where you are in relation to the subject (at least for a non-fisheye
>non-shift lens).  All you are doing with a longer lens is optically cropping
>part of the picture.   Wide angle lenses appear to alter perspective because
>they allow you to get closer to the subject for the same field of view.
>
>Neil
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Peterson Arthur G NSSC [mailto:PetersonAG@NAVSEA.NAVY.MIL]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 1:43 PM
>To: 'Leica Users Group'
>Subject: RE: [Leica] 50mm lenses should be compulsory.
>
>
>
>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
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Leica Users Group.
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>
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In reply to: Message from nbeddoe at lehman.com (Beddoe, Neil) ([Leica] 50mm lenses should be compulsory.)