You just raised an interesting question in my mind about the utility of
70mm. I think I'd skip images taken with my 28-80 and 80-200 lenses as
I suspect I'd often be at the beginning or end of those two lenses. But
my 24-135 walkaround lens might make an interesting test. I need to
examine a bunch of images taken with that lens and see if the 65-75
range occurs at all and how frequently. Maybe it really does tend to go
unused. We'll see.
Chuck Norcutt
On 1/27/2012 12:34 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
> Good question Chuck. I can answer from my own perspective and only my own
> perspective.
>
> My "normal" focal length is 35mm. It is the basis of the one-body-length
> working distance even shoot lens. I can get in close enough to the subject,
> but not so close as to be in their face. A 50mm lens has me backing up far
> enough that invariably I get somebody cutting in front of me to the
> subject. Techically speaking, the 42mm-ish focal length is considered
> "normal" for the 24x36mm frame, but that's a mathematical thing, not
> necessarily a usage thing. I've had several cameras that worked at that
> focal length and I found them to be OK, but never quite ideal. Wierd.
>
> My "extreme" wide angle is 24mm. Somewhere between 21 and 24 seems to be
> the sweet spot there. Biggest problem with 24mm is that you start to induce
> distortion into the image and it looks like a wide-angle shot.
>
> The advantage of 28mm is that it is the widest lens you can use that
> doesn't produce wide-angle images. Lenses of 28 to 35mm are wider than
> "normal" but maintain the natural look and subject to background
> relationship. If I could have just one wide-angle F2 lens for the OM
> system, it would probably be either the 28mm or the 35mm with a slight nod
> to the 28mm. (It's also sharper by a country mile).
>
> 50mm is a wierd beast to me. There are days I like it, but it formats the
> image like a "long normal". It's the longest "normal" lens I'd ever use.
>
> Between 50mm and 80mm there seems to be a no man's land. I really dislike
> 70mm. It's a neither fish nor fowl focal length. It's never long enough.
> they only thing I can say nice about it is that it's a doubling of the 35mm
> focal length, but even then it just doesn't provide enough of a reach to be
> usable. At 80mm, the lens becomes usable again. There is another sweet spot
> between 80 and 105mm.
>
> 135mm is smack dab in the middle of 100 and 200mm focal lengths. It seems
> to work better if your short tele is at 80-85mm.
>
> So, the standard doubling sequence of 24, 50, 100, 200 can have an
> alternative of 21, 35, 85, 135. The only time I see 70mm ever being useful
> is when all other focal lengths have been accidently left at home. The
> 35-70mm zooms just don't quite do it for me. I had one for many years and
> found that it was useful for shooting formals at a wedding because it gave
> me some positional flexibility when working the "normal" focal length, but
> if I wanted to go to the 70mm end, I almost always switched off to the
> 100/2.8 lens.
>
> I don't even know if my 35-80 even works at 70mm. Never tried it.
>
> AG
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