Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/02

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Subject: [Leica] "Normal" lenses
From: rpalmier at depaul.edu (Robert Palmieri)
Date: Sun May 2 17:25:50 2004

All - 

The recent resurgence of discussions 'bout 50's brings the following to
mind:

For a long time my 35 4th gen. 'cron was my everyday walking around
lens.  Something about 35mm lenses that doesn't get discussed much is
the fact that if you like to guesstimate field sizes without raising
camera to eye a 35 field is particularly good, because however far you
are from the subject, that's how wide the horizontal is.  (After
juggling around arc-tan and realizing how hazy most of my high school
trig is, and finally calculating the not-so-obvious 53 degrees as the
above-mentioned field of view I realized that it's all actually more
obvious than I thought. Which means that I was just oblivious, or
something...)

However, I was cropping those 35 shots a few times too many, and decided
to try some 50's.  Ended up with a collapsible 'cron for everyday use
9love it for its size)and a new-style Summilux for when I need people's
eyes to sparkle in the candle light.
The sliding hood drives me nuts, so a nice metal job is always sticking
out of the front.  The 70 cm close limit and fast rack are really big
for me.  The curved field means no landscape shooting.  Haven't shot
color with either one...

Bob Palmieri

Replies: Reply from ruben at rhodos.dk (Ruben) ([Leica] "Normal" lenses)