Jump to content

What Focal Length Do We See/Think the World In?


bags27

Recommended Posts

Advertisement (gone after registration)

i just discovered this interesting article on Thorsten Overgaard's website: 

 

http://www.overgaard.dk/the-story-behind-that-picture-0186_gb.html

 

Most interesting to me is his analyses of artists' perspectives and his speculation on why the 35mm has become so fashionable as the primary lens.

 

And it is always good to be reminded that we need to see the world by the primary lens we choose....

or is it the other way around?  :)

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Most interesting to me is his analyses of artists' perspectives and his speculation on why the 35mm has become so fashionable as the primary lens.

 

 

 

Much confusion as to "what we see" -- looking straight ahead, periphery vision is quite wide (maybe <20mm) but the fall-off of focus is great.  I'm worse since I lost some peripheral vision to my right.

The "experts" say that the "Normal" lens should be the square root of the film's diagonal dimension (maybe just a bit wider).  This would be about 44~57 -- YMMV -- this explains somewhat why the 50mm is considered normal for 35mm film, 80mm for 6x6 film.

 

But today everyone sees at 28mm due to their cell phone cameras (and Leica Q).  I love 28mm on both -- I usually use a 35mm f1.4 as my primary on DSLRs.

 

The Q answers most of my questions.  I often set it to 50mm frame lines when shooting portraits, sometimes 35mm for general use, 28mm for landscapes.  The sensor's image quality is so good that I can make delightful prints, even at 13"x19", from the 50mm perspective.

 

I'm testing Photozoom 6 now to evaluate "up-scaling" the 50mm crop images fro the Q.  -- I'll reply here in a few days with results.

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Advertisement (gone after registration)

A human eye may see the same angle of view that a 35mm lens sees,  or it may be wider; keep in mind that each human has two eyes, spaced 33mm apart, give or take. 

 

JMHO, but the angle of view of a pair of human eyes works out to be pretty close to an oval version of what a Hasselblad XPAN sees with a 45mm lens mounted and set to panoramic format.  I have also read that the 45mm lens on the XPAN when the camera is set to panoramic mode works out to around 21-22 mm.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...