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[OM] Re: 7519772104 reasonable 40f2

Subject: [OM] Re: 7519772104 reasonable 40f2
From: Winsor Crosby <wincros@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 12:06:26 -0700
Richard, nice to see a post from you on the list again.

I have to agree with you, for myself. I think I would rather have a  
really superb 35mm lens which manufacturers compete to make better.  
And below a certain size and weight I don't think compactness matters  
much and sometimes makes the lens difficult to use. But I know Nikon  
has done a 40mm pancake lens and it has a similar enthusiastic  
following.

A month ago Steve Johnston took up the banner for 40mm in his Sunday  
Morning Photographer column on Luminous Landscape and seems to think  
it has something to do with its being the closest to true normal of  
43mm for a 35mm film frame.

If there were a natural focal length I think it might be in the  
85-100 range. Many years ago Leica Fotografie did an article that  
studied of a number of painted landscapes  hanging in art museums,  
went to the sites where the artist set up his easel and found that  
most of the paintings had framing and perspective similar to these  
twice "normal" lenses. I think many of us bought a lens in that  
length for portraits and then found we liked it for much, much more.   
It would partly explain the enthusiasm for the "incredible  
sharpness", at least on a Nikon list, for this length when Nikon's  
own MTF figures put them somewhat below almost any of their modern  
zooms.



Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA




On May 31, 2005, at 9:09 AM, Richard Schaetzl wrote:


>
> Only, I never found someone so sensitive on focal length
> insisting on, for example, a 120mm lens, since the 100mm or
> 135mm "wouldn`t cut it", had that hard to describe
> perspectiv advantage.
>
> If 40mm would be that inspired focal length, wouldn´t it be
> the most sold focal length, instead of an niche product,
> which sold so bad, no second productions run had been made?
>
> Didn`t that 40mm rage start on this list, when someone
> praised that "rare and special" 40mm lens "Hollywood had
> bought all remaining stock"?
> Resulting in far overpriced lenses, kind of that dutch tulip
> craze.
>
> Isn`t it an "emperor new clothes" situation? Can the owners
> of that lens admit, that it is an quite ordinary lens,
> nothing special, like an 35mm or 50mm lens, otherwise their
> "investment" would loose much of its value?*
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