Quick lens question since we’re sort of on the subject.
50mm lenses were regarded as pretty much a required, versatile, workhorse lens for 50 years+ of photography. Everyone has a nifty fifty. It’s considered to be the right field of view and perspective to be useful in a whole lot of situations.
But that was on 35mm film cameras. Using APS-C crop sensors, the field of view on lenses becomes cropped. A 50mm lens on an APS-C DSLR becomes equal to 75mm on a full frame. So you’d think that people would make ~35mm lenses for the APS-C format, which would be an equivelant field of view to the old 50mms. Yet, the dominant prime even for APS-C cameras is 50mm. Why is that?
Because there are many 50mm lenses that are cheap, fast, and still very useful. There aren’t nearly as many 70-80mm prime lenses that offer value like that.
Yeah, I’ve been jonesing to try out that camera for those reasons. I need a good carry around camera that isn’t as pricey as a Leica M9, but still has a lot of those old-school, tactile controls. I’ve never really warmed up to the PowerShots or the Lumixes, or anything, even though they do deliver great results. The Fuji X100 is a commitment to the 35mm focal length, but, short of shelling out for a Leica, it seems to be the best option for what I want out of a portable camera.
The X100 is a cool camera, but it’s highly specialized, definitely not a main camera for most amateur photographers, more like a second or third camera for someone who’s really into photography.
Actually, a 50mm on a APS-C is more like an 85-90mm.
They do make equivalently smaller lenses, but the catch is that making such short focal length lenses, there are tradeoffs. For example, there are lenses in the 10-30 mm range available, but in general, a 30mm APS-C lens doesn’t have the image quality that a 50mm would have on a 35mm film camera, because it’s a lot easier to make a good 50mm lens than a good 30mm lens.
The upshot of it all is that the shorter focal length lens equivalents are a combination of more expensive and not quite as good. Sigma’s 30mm f1.4 prime is something like 500 bucks, and doesn’t hold a candle to Canon’s 50mm f1.8, but it’s the only fast prime in that focal length out there if you want the APS-C equivalent of the old-school “nifty-fifty”.
Yeah, the main limitation for the average photographer is going to be the focal length of the lens. You really have to know what you want and what you’re getting when you pick out the X100. For what I’d want to use it for, it seems just about the perfect camera, though I, too, wish it had interchangeable lenses.
Check out my earlier links, bump. Both Canon and Nikon have low cost ($200 range) 35mm 1.8 and 2.0 specifically for their 1.5/1.6 crop factor cameras. As for quality, they are definitely low end lenses in construction, but with fairly good reviews optically. Better than the old standby 50s? I doubt it. But it’s probably pretty close.
FTR, my old Nikkor 50mm f/2.0 was one of the sharper lenses I had. Bought it used, had it AIed by Nikon in the 80s. Nifty Fifty indeed! Later got a Nikkor 50/1.2 to replace my incredibly old Yashinon 58mm/1.2 with adapter. Still used the 2.0 more.
I have a Pentax K10D. It’s a bit older than what you’re looking at, so I’ll speak as to why I picked Pentax. I had all Nikon, and sold all my Nikon digital stuff for the Pentax. I was tired of only certain lenses getting stabilization, and only certain bodies metering through older lenses. Pentax didn’t seem to play favorites with their bodies when it came to metering. It may not be that way anymore with Nikon, I haven’t really paid attention. it is nice to be able to pick from any of Pentax’s back catalog of lenses. I haven’t changed the focus screen to help focus older lenses, I have a viewfinder magnifier attachment. It isn’t as good as a split focus screen, but it works.
I also wanted weather sealing. I have a grip and usually use my 16-50mm DA* lens, both are sealed. All three have been extremely rugged and I don’t have to worry about them.
I’m sure either one of the big two have all these things covered now, at the time they were annoying enough when I picked to go Pentax. I never really regretted going to a much smaller manufacturer.
50 * 1.5 = 75, no? I guess you might mean Canon’s APS-C crop factor which is actually 1.6, but then that’d only be 80.
Aha, so you’re essentially saying it’s easier to crap good optics in a longer lens body, and even though 35mm or so would be the APS-C equivelant to the old nifty fifty, they can’t be as good optically because you have to design the lens differently?
So essentially you can’t recreate the nifty fifty effect in APS-C cameras? You can make a “nifty 75” out of the exact same lenses that would otherwise be nifty-50s, or you can make 35mms to give the same field of view as old 50mms, but due to the compromises of lens design in a smaller focal length, you won’t receive the same degree of sharpness and other factors nifty 50s were famous for?
Is distortion a factor in this at all? I’ve heard that wider angles distort portraits in a way that most people find displeasing, but moderately telephoto lenses are more flattering to people. Something to do with telephoto lenses’ perspective and “seperating the layers” between foreground and background. Is part of this issue that while 50mm lenses on APS-C cameras have a narrower field of view, they have the same perspective and have the same relation between foreground and background, just over a smaller field of view?
The Canon is a full frame 35mm, closer to $330, and a very old design.
A Canon EF-S 35mm is noticeably absent for crop cameras, and many people are hoping one similar to the Nikon will turn up at some point. Given Nikon managed it, it seems to be a marketting decision rather than anything much to do with physics.
Cool. I was reading the reviews for it by by people using it for a “normal” lens on their digital Rebels. Point still stands. There are 35s you can get for many of these cameras.
Pentax/Ricoh is marketing their “pancake” lens, the 40mm f/2.8 in addition to a 35mm f/2.4 made for their digital cams.
I’ve been thinking about this, and it makes sense - you’ll have your lenses for a lifetime but cameras for only a few years.
But is there really all that big a difference between the various systems for most people? Pretty much all the manufacturers make all the basic lenses - 18-55s, 50 primes, 55-200s and 55-300s, 18-135s, etc.
Nikon/Canon is probably better if you rent lenses since it’d be easier to come by it, but that’s really not a common concern amongst most people. I guess there’s some advantage to the flexibility of accessory systems like flash systems, but it seems like all manufacturers have at least an adequate set of accessories available.
Tamron/Sigma also make a range of lenses and accessories for every camera to fill in any gaps.
What are the big things I’d be missing out on by going Pentax or Sony over Canon or Nikon?
People say that wide angle lenses are bad for potraits because they distort features in a negative way, and that telephoto can be better - not sure if it’s because it lacks distortion or because it distorts in a more pleasant way.
They also say that focal length affects the perception of depth of the picture - wide angle makes objects images closer to the camera look further away from objects far from the camera - and telephoto is the opposite, it compresses the apparent depth of the image.
Could that by why 50mm still seems so popular on APS-C? That it’s not the field of view, but rather the distortion and the way it depth is perceived? Those would still be the same across different sized sensors, since the APS-C is just a crop of the same image circle.
Well its ultimately subjective in that some people barely see differences between lenses, while others see them as giant gulfs. It also depends if you’re happy not to upgrade, or if you want higher end options. The options tend to be patchier in the smaller/newer brands and Sigma etc isnt always an adequate alternative.
What Id suggest is picking the lenses you want most now and in the future and seeing how they went in reviews, eg at Photozone. You’ll find there is variation between the brands, but how important they are is up to you.
I’ve only skimmed the thread, so apologies if I repeat anything here, but it looks like you’re conflating a couple of terms here. In discussions of lenses, distortion generally refers to barrel distortion, meaning that an image taken with that lens will be distorted, e.g., straight lines appear curved.
So, when you say that wide angles make bad portrait lenses (and even then, it depends on the type of portrait; they’re great if you’re taking, say, an environmental portrait where you’re basically sticking people into a landscape or architecture shot), it’s more a matter of perspective. For example, let’s assume that you’re taking a headshot. If you’re using a wide lens and want to get the person’s face to fill the frame, you’d need to get right up close to them, say one or two feet away. Being this close to them means that noses are unusually large relative to ears, things of that sort.
As a rule of thumb, you want to be 6-15 feet from your subject for a more “normal” perspective. Of course there are any number of variables that will affect this, but as far as the 50mm on APS-C goes, people love it for portraiture because it generally gives the composition you want at the distance you want.
If you want to read way more about focal length vs. distance, here’s a thread from POTN that goes into it at length (no pun intended).
A little late, but thanks for that thread, that clears some stuff up.
Review sites cover a whole lot of data - resolution, contrast, even light exposure across the frame, stabilization effectiveness… but damn if I can find standardized autofocus comparisons. I’ve heard mention of Pentax being lacking compared to canon/nikon in the autofocus department, but other people say they’re just as quick. I wish I could get some sort of objective measure of that, because I’ve been wanting to be able to shoot sports and action shots.
Otherwise I haven’t heard anything to scare me away from the K5… well, other than the fact that no one knows what’s going on with the company since Ricoh bought them, except they’re rumored to be coming out with a mirrorless K mount.
The Pentax 55-300mm zoom is apparently the best of the consumer grade telephoto zooms, and cheaper than most at around $350, so I’m thinking of starting with the weathersealed 18-55 kit lens ($150, also regarded as the best of the 18-55 kit lenses) and that one. When I figure out what focal lengths I use most, I’ll get a prime in that range.
I was thinking of skipping right to the Tamron 17-50 2.8 instead of the kit lens. It’s only $400, in part because it lacks stabilization, but that’s irrelevant with in body stabilization. It’s supposed to be optically remarkable for the price even if the build quality is somewhat cheap. I’d hate to go with the 18-55 and then end up rebuying the 17-50 anyway, but if I don’t get that kit lens, I’d be without a weather sealed lens.
DP Review certainly used to provide auto-focus performance, at least for point n shoots consumer models. There’s a clue right in their K-5 review that explains why they no longer do so for DSLRs:
Sounds like focus performance is not a problem, and if it was they’d surely mark down the rating for any DSLR that couldn’t keep up.
