Best Lens for Contax G2 snapshots & family photos

[ou1954]

>Posted by Jonathan Chiu on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 6:29 am: > >Frankly, I also agree 35/2 is more versatile usage and suit most >purpose. I am a bit headache now!

You know, it's interesting that I see this trend towards 35mm lenses. I have one Point and Shoot camera, a Nikon Action Touch (rugged and water proof) that I take to family events. We all know that most of the P&S camera generally have 35mm lenses. I thought that was a negative factor, but I guess that with that camera I'm right up to date.

I still use a 50, 25, and a Zoom with my RTS, but there is no question that that little Nikon is just right for family parties, etc. Flash, auto focus, and the kids and grand kids can take all the pictures.

 

[ou1954]

>Posted by Rick Dreher on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 6:42 pm: > >The obvious choice would be the zoom, but that may be out of your >budget. Otherwise, I suggest the 35/2. IMHO it's the most versatile of >the G primes, and is a little less critical to focus wide open when >you're close to your subject than the 45. Also, it's better for >shooting in tight quarters. > > Rick

This is a re-post. Hope it's not a duplicate. The first one was rejected because of dashes in front of "Rick".

Here we go again. For the same object size in a print a wide angle lens does not have a greater depth of field than a normal lens.

Thought that was settled last month.

 

[fastfashn]

"Otherwise, I suggest the 35/2. IMHO it's the most versatile of the G primes, and is a little less critical to focus wide open"

I like my 35mm better than the 45 I bought later. The out of focus highlights aren't as good, but I think it's more versatile. Why the industry decided on a 50mm lens as a standard lens I don't understand. My natural vison isn't 50mm, it's more like 28mm.

 

[tomasjpn]

Jonathan,

Sure. Just give me a couple days to get around to doing some scans. I just got back a few days ago and haven't sifted through the photos yet.

 

[rickd]

I have to confess that I didn't find the earlier DOF discussion to be all that relevant to my shooting practices. Here's my line of thinking (using a DOF calculator and a COC of .025mm):

45mm @f/2 focused at the minimum 0.5m has a DOF of 4mm, while the 35 has a DOF of 6mm.

These differences aren't phantom in practice., either DOF is paper thin, but the extra 50% offered by the 35 gives a better chance of my shot being in sharp focus--a huge challenge to an autofocus rangefinder such as the G. Move out to 1 meter and the DOFs are 15 and 25mm, respectively. The 10mm difference is significant.

Granted, if you're concerned strictly about subject image size on the negative, copy stand work for instance, you'd shoot from farther away w/ the 45 than the 35, and both the image size and DOF are the same. (I think that was the gist of the earlier discussion.) But that's not how a lot of people shoot, myself included. I frequently shoot at the minimum distance whatever lens I'm using, and I toss away more slides taken with the 45 due to focus errors (and quite a few taken w/ the 90 too).

There are also the differences in hyperfocal distance to consider: 80 meters for the 35 and 133 for the 45.

My bottom line: shooting wide open, shooting in tight quarters, or composing a landscape to get as much of the image as possible in focus, the 35mm is an easier tool to accomplish the task with than the 45mm. Both remain worthy lenses.

Of course, poor Jonathan was just asking which lens to buy!

--Rick

 

[jchiu]

hi folks,

I start to reconsider 35mm. I learnt from other posts that 35mm is now widely used by reporters in newspaper. After I buy it, I will always take it along with me. Therefore, I will consider to have a fast-shoot and ease of use camera at this moment.

Of course, I still looking forward to Mr. Mark's s&le before I go and buy it!

thx

 

[jhslater]

Dana - You are correct in saying that your "normal" vision is like a 28 mm lens.

The "normal" lens for any format is the diagonal measurement of the negative - in the case of 35mm the frame is 24 x 36; the diagonal is 43.2666, so the "normal" lens should be around this value. Many years ago (1950s & 60s), "point & shoot" cameras had a 40-45 mm lens. Now, most are 35mm. Why? I can only assume it is because most of these cameras are used for indoor "family" photography.

Now, about the "normal" lens being 50 mm. The following information was given to me by a person who owned a camera store where I worked for 15 years. He spend a lot of time in Germany after WWII and picked up a lot of knowledge on 35 mm photography there. He actually spoke the language as well as any German native, so he got along with the people there. He even spent some time at Leitz.

The choice of all standard lenses in the 35mm format are based on this:

You mentioned you see like a 28 mm - well, we all do. This is the angle of view that the average person sees while just looking around. Then, we all "zoom in" on a part of the scene, but we stop at a few different angles of view in the process. The next step is about the same angle as the 35 mm lens; the next about the same as the 50-55 mm; the last (where we concentrate on some detail) is about the angle of view of the 90-100 mm lens.

Using this to your advantage can make you a better photographer. Try using this technique the next time you go on a shoot. It works for me. When I was told about it, I realized I had been doing it since I started being serious about photography

So, why the 50 mm? Probably because the angle of view of the 50 is one of the points where we stop to concentrate on what we see.

The normal lens choice, however, is up to you. If your style is to use the 35mm or even the 28mm, fine! Photography is both and art form and a craft. Do what works best for you.

Jim

 

[max51]

According to Zeiss in one of the lens brochures on this site (one of the 50 mm planars, I think), the term "normal" lens does not refer to angle of view. Rather it refers to ratio of the apparent size of objects in the foreground of a photo to the size of objects in the background.

In other words, would the fore and aft perspective of a given lens make all the objects in a photo look normal to the unaided eye. So with a telephoto you get apparent compression with background images "larger than life." With a wide angle they are "smaller than life." Zeiss believes the 50 provides the most natural apparent relationships between objects near and far.

BTW, the normal human angle of view is 229 degrees, far exceeding any of the lenses that might be considered normal.

>

 

[vicb]

229 degrees? Wow, I am not aware that I can see behind my back.
The human angle of view must be less than 180 degrees, in fact it is about 170 degrees.
Giap

 

[vawatts]

If you have normal healthy eyes, you should be able to see more than 180 degrees. That's why you can sometimes see someone 'out of the corner of your eye'
Vivian