[Leica] 50mm lenses should be compulsory.

[buzz.hausner at verizon.net (buzz.hausner@verizon.net)]

Now that I am at work, I can thank Art for eloquently making my point.  All I would add is that the section of the photograph which is cropped makes a great deal of difference.  Let's say you are cropping a 21mm frame to correspopnd to, oh, a 90mm view.  If you take the crop dead center on the frame it will more closely resemble the 90 than if you cropped a corner of the 21mm frame.

Thanks, Art.

      Buzz
> 
> From: Peterson Arthur G NSSC <PetersonAG@navsea.navy.mil>
> Date: 2004/05/19 Wed AM 08:43:10 EDT
> To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
> 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