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Your favourite focal lengths, and what do you shoot?


Keith_W

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  • 2 weeks later...

Because I live in the countryside 50 is my most used, followed by 90. When in towns or cities (very rare) I like the 24.

35 was my first lens but I love the 50 so much I haven't used it much lately. 35 is a great lens, all the same.

 

 

Because I live in the city 28 is my most used, followed by 35. When in the countryside (very rare) I like the 50 followed by a Canon 100 LTM.

35 was my first lens but I love the 28 so much I haven't used it much lately. 35 is a great lens, all the same.

:ph34r: 

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I decided to give the 28mm Elmarit (2016 Version) a try.

 

What a fantastic lens...  :o  I'm afraid it will replace my 35 Cron.

 

 

Mine just arrived from Leica DC yesterday.  I missed my 28 from the Nikon.  (Selling off everything but my Leica and lenses)  I expect it will become my favorite too.  I've always been a 35mm Leica user but now I think I may end up a 28/50 guy.  I still figure if I travel with only one lens it will be the 35, but we'll see.

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Ideally I would use 24mm and 50mm, but with Leica my two primary lenses are currently the 28mm Summicron and 50mm Summilux - because of the rangefinder limitations and a general reluctance to use external viewfinders unless absolutely necessary (21mm).

 

The 28mm is mostly used for documentary photography. At the moment, it lives on my M7 and is being used to record the unfolding independence story in Catalunya. With glasses, I struggle to see the frame-lines, but the field of view is perfect for general reportage. It is particularly good with dense groups of people when shot wide-open and up close, and it is also an excellent general walk-around lens.

 

The 50mm is probably my favourite focal length, and gets used for the majority of street and artistic photographs. It is sometimes a little too long given the close confines of Barcelona, but street photography with a 28mm at 1 to 2m distance is not always fun, and the 50mm also offers more options for shallow depth of field. The Summilux mainly lives on the M 262, and was the only lens that I used on a recent trip back the UK.

 

My lenses are (almost) entirely selected as the fastest available with a 46mm filter size. This makes it easier to carry filters, particularly for black-and-white film work, but also for ND and polarisers with the M 262.

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My travel set used to include the 21, 35 (preFLE) and 75 summiluxes on my SL and M246, and always looked forward to using the Q28. I now use the 24-90 on the SL with Q or M246 with 24 Elmar and 50 summicron (v5?), and toss in the 90 macro elmar. Just got the RF adjusted by DAG on the M246 and with great relief am now using the OVF only. If need the EVF, then the SL rules. Do landscapes/travel and some street. Only take out one camera and one lens mostly for a day, depending on subject.

Regards,

Bob

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobpittphotos/albums

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I've long been a 28/50 shooter, which carried over to Leica as I started to migrate into this ecosystem a few years back. However I am also quite fond of the 20/21mm range and the 85-135mm range from my SLR days. I've tried so many different lenses trying to figure out what makes the most sense to me on a Leica that I decided to really just keep it simple for a while and I'm going to be using just the 35 FLE for at least the next year and that will likely show me what (if anything) I need to add in the future. 

 

In the past I've shot just about everything, but if I had to sum up what I do now it's primarily travel and documentary work (thus my draw to Leica). I also do landscape work when the mood strikes me.

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I like 50mm best, otherwise the people are too little, or I'm closer than my comfort zone or conversely I'm too far away from whatever it is.

 

The other 6 lenses are a total waste of time and money and effort :)

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LOL. You've just given my life new purpose! ;)

 

 

You're welcome. The good thing about 50's is there are hundreds of them! The fun never stops!

 

Imagine how boring it would be if you only liked 75's. After you bought the three Leica and two Voigtlander 75's, what would you do??!

Edited by michaelwj
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