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Is 35mm All You Really Need?


Michele Belloni

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Just published a quick post on my blog about 35mm focal length. I think that if you must bring only one lens with you, this is the perfect choice. What do you think about it? Agree or disagree?

 

Let me know. Thanks!

 

http://www.michelebelloni.com/the-35mm-for-all-your-needs/

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Just published a quick post on my blog about 35mm focal length. I think that if you must bring only one lens with you, this is the perfect choice. What do you think about it? Agree or disagree?

 

Let me know. Thanks!

 

http://www.michelebelloni.com/the-35mm-for-all-your-needs/

 

Yes and no.

 

If I bring only one lens I bring the 35mm. But if I were to shoot portraits I would definitively bring a short tele as well. For most portrait situations the 35mm is to wide. Not saying that you can't shoot portraits with a 35, but it will limit the kind of portraits you can take substantially.

 

I can add that a 35mm is my most used lens and a 90mm is my second most.

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Bringing one lens has been done to death.

 

It is a great way to miss many shots simply because you have limited yourself, by choice! Why would you?

 

Ask a plumber or carpenter or ........ etc if they would bring only one tool. They would look at you as though you were mad.

 

Even painters (artists) carry more than one brush.

 

Carry what you can and suffer for your craft. It was not meant to be easy.

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Just published a quick post on my blog about 35mm focal length. I think that if you must bring only one lens with you, this is the perfect choice. What do you think about it? Agree or disagree?

 

Let me know. Thanks!

 

http://www.michelebelloni.com/the-35mm-for-all-your-needs/

Disagree.

It depends entirely on your subject. It is advisable to use a 400 mm as your "only lens" when photographing wildlife without being eaten.

OTOH if your thing for today is photographing interiors, better bring your 18mm, you won't need much else.

 

In other words: adapt the tool to the job, not the job to the tool.

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I think that if you must bring only one lens with you, [the 35 mm lens] is the perfect choice. What do you think about it? Agree or disagree?

Disagree.

 

For me, the most versatile lens (on a 35-mm-format camera) is the 50 mm. But then, that doesn't mean much. After all, it's just personal preference. Some love the 35 mm, others prefer the 28 mm or still another focal length. No focal length is inherently more versatile than others. As a matter of fact, the versatiliy of any single fixed focal length is pretty much limited, compared to a set of lenses or a zoom lens. Any focal length perfectly suits some areas, acceptably suits some more, and totally not suits the rest. A single focal length will feel versatile to you when the areas it covers happen to match the areas you are interested in as a photographer.

 

 

With a 35 mm I can go out of my home really light and take photos of street, landscape, reportage, environmental and studio portraits.

See? Those are the fields a 35 mm lens is good at. You'd totally prefer a different lens if you were interested in, say, insects, spiders, and other crittery. Or in birding and wildlife. Or in homes' interiors. Or whatever ...

 

 

In addition, the visual field of 35 mm is equivalent to that of the human eye, thus giving a point of view that the brain immediately recognizes as natural.

This is nonsense.

 

If you want a lens that more or less matches the full field-of-view of the human eye then you'd need a fisheye lens. If you want one that matches the field of really sharp vision then you'd need a long telephoto lens.

 

The perspective in a picture appears natural if the angle-of-view of the beholder looking at the picture equals the angle-of-view of the lens capturing the scene. So which focal length will render naturally depends on the print size. Small prints will be looked at from a distance longer than the print's diagonal. We look at medium-sized prints from a viewing distance that about equals the print's diagonal. At large prints, we tend to look from a distance shorter than the print's diagonal—significantly shorter, in fact, for huge, wall-sized prints. So the bigger the print, the shorter the focal length that will give the impression of a natural perspective.

 

 

When I am on the street and I have to take a portrait, environmental or not, I'm forced to interact with the subject and get close to him.

If that's your argument then 28 mm would be even better than 35 mm ... because it would force you to get closer still and to interact even more. And 24 mm ... or 21 mm ... the shorter the lens, the more interaction.

 

 

A single focal length forces me to become more creative by concentrating on the scene and composition rather than worrying about zooming here and there to compose a picture.

This argument would be exactly the same for any fixed focal length and absolutely holds no water to endorse the 35 mm focal length specifically.

 

To summarize, your article totally fails to collects good arguments to prefer the 35 mm focal length over 50 mm (or any other focal length). It's totally fine to praise the 35 mm lens if that's what happens to float your boat ... but your attempt to provide the reader with a list of technical arguments in order to convince her or him to use the same lens is a failure. The best argument in favour of the 35 mm is your gallery—lots of beautiful pictures indeed. But then, other photographers using other lenses also do good work.

 

And you failed to mention one of the best properties of the 35 mm lens: The width of the field-of-view (in landscape orientation) always equals the distance. So at 3 m distance you will capture a field 3 m wide, at 15 ft the field is 15 ft wide, etc. So you can look at your subject, estimate the width, pre-focus your lens to that number, step up to that distance, and shoot.

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Disagree.

[...]

 

 

This is nonsense.

 

If you want a lens that more or less matches the full field-of-view of the human eye then you'd need a fisheye lens. If you want one that matches the field of really sharp vision then you'd need a long telephoto lens.

 

The perspective in a picture appears natural if the angle-of-view of the beholder looking at the picture equals the angle-of-view of the lens capturing the scene. So which focal length will render naturally depends on the print size. Small prints will be looked at from a distance longer than the print's diagonal. We look at medium-sized prints from a viewing distance that about equals the print's diagonal. At large prints, we tend to look from a distance shorter than the print's diagonal—significantly shorter, in fact, for huge, wall-sized prints. So the bigger the print, the shorter the focal length that will give the impression of a natural perspective.

 

[...]

Not only that, but the perspective is also much influenced by the subject distance and scale. If you want to take a natural looking photograph closeup of a model railway, you need a very short focal length indeed.
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Bringing one lens has been done to death.

 

It is a great way to miss many shots simply because you have limited yourself, by choice! Why would you?

 

Ask a plumber or carpenter or ........ etc if they would bring only one tool. They would look at you as though you were mad.

 

Even painters (artists) carry more than one brush.

 

Carry what you can and suffer for your craft. It was not meant to be easy.

 

Amen to that!

 

Bringing "enough" kit without bring so much as to make yourself physically miserable is one of the most elusive of all photographic skills.

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Indeed, it is a skill, but not a very hard one. Just focus on your plans for the day and visualize the photographs you are going to take. The reduction in kit follows automatically.

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Well if I was only allowed to take one lens it would be a 35mm, since it is my most used focal length (just like 28mm was with my M8.2).  My bag holds 21,24,28,35,50,and 90 mm lenses and I use them all as needed and would not give any of them up.

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Just published a quick post on my blog about 35mm focal length. I think that if you must bring only one lens with you, this is the perfect choice. What do you think about it? Agree or disagree? [...]

 

Disagree with respect. There is no such thing as a perfect choice in this matter. HCB used to say «The 50mm lens is my life. A certain distance with people. The wide angle shouts, and the 90mm reminds me those ear trumpets that old ladies used to use in the past». if i bring only one lens it is always a 50mm AFAIC. It is just a matter of tastes though. I simply "see" in 50mm the same way as others "see" in 35mm or otherwise. Nothing right or wrong in all that.

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For many years my only lens was a 50mm because that's what SLR's were sold with and I couldn't afford any more lenses.

 

If you can only have one lens a zoom is probably 'best' but it really depends on subject matter and personal choice.

 

So no, a 35mm is definitely not all you need.

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35mm was my favorite for almost 20 years, the only other lenses I used during that time were an occasional 135 and 90mm. I did go for a stretch of 3 years with only the 35mm. Having said that, I believe that having a fuller set of tools is a better answer, especially if one is shooting a variety of subjects.

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I usually have one camera body and one lens with me.  I then look for and "see" photos of that focal length.  And, those are the photos I take.  Those that I miss, I miss.  I don't mind that.  But I feel I have a keener approach to scenes with one lens only and my mind tuned into that focal length...and sometimes I get a surprising result that is not taken with the stereotypical or expected focal length for a particular subject.

I have four lenses.  I rarely go out with more than one.  And I pretty much only take all four out together when I am traveling, for example.  I literally can't recall the last time I changed lenses while out taking photos.

Having said that, in answer to the original question, I think that "choice" of focal length is a personal preference, of course.  I don't find a particular focal length to be perfect.  I like the one that is on the camera, in my opinion. 

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I doubt whether I made my best photoos with a 35, I guess it might be rather a 75, 90 or 180. But I don't doubt so much that 35 is my most used focal length.

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