28mm vs 35mm for Telling a story

[Cobram]

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37 minutes ago, Steven said:

Interesting thought. Maybe that's why I'm so in love with my newly acquired 28 Lux too. 

I actually love it so much that I want to add another 28 to my kit now, to have a compact alternative to the lux. I'm hesitating between the Summaron and the elmarit. 

Infinity rendering - landscape photos --> Elmarit ASPH

All other situations I'm really impressed by Cron. Small, sharp, very nice smooth rendering.

[jslabovitz]

6 hours ago, Steven said:

I actually love it so much that I want to add another 28 to my kit now, to have a compact alternative to the lux. I'm hesitating between the Summaron and the elmarit. 

I love my little Summaron for urban/cityscape walks. I shoot it ‘wide open’ @ 5.6 (and auto-shutter, auto-ISO) almost all the time.

Most of the recent images on my Flickr photostream are from the Summaron: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jslabovitz/

[George Stoichev]

I have only one lens for my Leica M6 - Summicron M 50mm ASPH.I’m pretty happy with it. Despite of this I’d like to have wider lens as well, so I can be faster with street photography, the 35mm or 28mm would give me at f/8 wider DOF.

I’d like to pick 28mm, but I’m going for ZEISS ZM line and I find their 28mm lens are with f/2.8, but Zeiss ZM 35mm is with f/2. I prefer the 28mm, but from another side I like faster f/2 more than f/2.8.

what is your advice?

[Guest]

On 3/2/2021 at 5:29 PM, Steven said:

The cron is too close to my Lux. Its the elmarit or the summarom for me for a second lens. 

You already had the summaron and did not like it? dont rule out older elmarits either as an option.

[Lelmer]

22 hours ago, George Stoichev said:

I have only one lens for my Leica M6 - Summicron M 50mm ASPH.I’m pretty happy with it. Despite of this I’d like to have wider lens as well, so I can be faster with street photography, the 35mm or 28mm would give me at f/8 wider DOF.

I’d like to pick 28mm, but I’m going for ZEISS ZM line and I find their 28mm lens are with f/2.8, but Zeiss ZM 35mm is with f/2. I prefer the 28mm, but from another side I like faster f/2 more than f/2.8.

what is your advice?

I strongly recommend the Elmarit 28. Fantastic compact lens.

[rsolomon]

On 2/24/2021 at 5:47 PM, Dennis said:

For me, 35mm is a winning for storytelling.

If I need even more, I go with the 21 (skipping 24 and 28) for more committed context. I never liked/embraced the 28 FL. But it's me. 

Agree !

[Dennis]

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8 hours ago, rsolomon said:

On 2/24/2021 at 3:47 PM, Dennis said:

For me, 35mm is a winning for storytelling. If I need even more, I go with the 21 (skipping 24 and 28) for more committed context. I never liked/embraced the 28 FL. But it's me. 

Agree !

I saw this, and I have to tell you I changed my mind. 20/21mm has always been used and loved by my cameras. I thought it was for Leica also, but not so much. I like 21 on M cameras, but I don't love it as expected. I mean, the focal length is the same, but I don't always want to guesstimate; most of the time, I have a composition in mind, and I need to see the edges. External VF and LV are not as I love to use an RF.

So, after tests and many photos, I think now that the 28 is my wide-angle lens because I can see all frames inside the OVF. When I need more, I switch to 21, but not so often as I thought. With experience and purpose, my experience with 21 has changed.

.

So, coming back at the topic, 35mm is, and it will always be, a winner for storytelling. Do I need more context? 28. Do I need even more? 21. 

Having any Leica focal lengths available, now I would choose: 21 + 28 + 35 + 50 + 90. If you see the 35 is the reference, the desert island lens. Then I stay with the next focal length (50); I skip one (75) and go with a 90. Same backward: 35 followed by closest 28, skip 24 and stay with the 21.

Does it make sense?

P.s. The 28mm Summilux of the Q2M also helped to open more the horizon of the 28 possibilities.

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Dennis

[rsolomon]

8 hours ago, Dennis said:

I saw this, and I have to tell you I changed my mind. 20/21mm has always been used and loved by my cameras. I thought it was for Leica also, but not so much. I like 21 on M cameras, but I don't love it as expected. I mean, the focal length is the same, but I don't always want to guesstimate; most of the time, I have a composition in mind, and I need to see the edges. External VF and LV are not as I love to use an RF.

So, after tests and many photos, I think now that the 28 is my wide-angle lens because I can see all frames inside the OVF. When I need more, I switch to 21, but not so often as I thought. With experience and purpose, my experience with 21 has changed.

.

So, coming back at the topic, 35mm is, and it will always be, a winner for storytelling. Do I need more context? 28. Do I need even more? 21. 

Having any Leica focal lengths available, now I would choose: 21 + 28 + 35 + 50 + 90. If you see the 35 is the reference, the desert island lens. Then I stay with the next focal length (50); I skip one (75) and go with a 90. Same backward: 35 followed by closest 28, skip 24 and stay with the 21.

Does it make sense?

 

If your comfortable and it’s works for you that’s all that matters. I tend to challenge the limits a bit more, for me it’s more dynamic, it’s more challenging, it’s more fun. 
I use the EVF as needed, it’s a tool in the bag. I use it occasionally for both 75 and 21, to me it’s not a big deal - I rather have the photo 

[rtai]

I am mostly into street photography and prefer to include the environment as much as possible. Maybe another interpretation is I shoot cityscapes featuring people. For that I prefer the 28mm, 24mm or 21mm. I use wide lenses if already knew ahead of time what I wanted to capture. The 35mm is a general purpose “zoom” which I carry as one lens/camera for travel when everything around the corner is a surprise. A 35mm can be a short 50mm or a long 28mm when you zoom with your feet. 

[Capuccino-Muffin]

The thing with wide angle photography is that it quickly looks boring when you view a lot of it. 
35 easily looks like a 50 when done well, and it easily looks like a 28 when done well.
 

Therefore 35 is the Pivot.

I love all focal lentgth, and I don’t hesitate to use 35 and 50 on two bodies. I do not believe in the 28+ 50 or only 35 theory. The key is to use all of them, for a proper portolio. But ultimately, only using a 28 will get boring looking very fast, and using only a 50 will also start looking sterile on the long run. 
Using only a 35 would be the most viable solution if you HAD to choose only one lens.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Capuccino-Muffin

[Kriehuber]

21 minutes ago, Capuccino-Muffin said:

35 easily looks like a 50 when done well, and it easily looks like a 28 when done well.
 

 

When getting (very) close, 28 gets often confused with a 35. You just net to get close and fill the frame,  also then its not getting boring and a 28 is everything you need. But I agree, straight on wide angle shots just capturing a environment also get boring instantly for me.

[Capuccino-Muffin]

17 minutes ago, Kriehuber said:

When getting (very) close, 28 gets often confused with a 35. You just net to get close and fill the frame,  also then its not getting boring and a 28 is everything you need. But I agree, straight on wide angle shots just capturing a environment also get boring instantly for me.

It’s still wide, even up close, and a bunch of wides end up doing that...

[jslabovitz]

I don't know if this helps, but I often approach choosing a focal length by the effect it has on where I'm standing relative to the framing I'm looking for. I'm stating this literally: I seem to have a sort of internal focal length for different types of images.

If I am walking down a street and see an interesting scene, I ask myself: which focal length will encompass the scene without me spending time to move around in significant ways, or needing to put myself in uncomfortable situations? I find my choices to be far more regular than I'd expect.

For example, I've discovered that for the type of 'urban landscape' style I shoot, a 28mm (Summaron-M 5.6) is almost always right. If I see a scene I like, and raise my camera to my eyes, the framing  matches what I'm noticing (the previsualization, one might say), without having to move backwards into the street or forwards into the scene.

Similarly, a 40mm (Voigtlander Nokton 1.2) fits my vision for architectural details or environmental portraits, and a 75mm (Summilux 1.4) fits for intimate portraits. (I keep my EVF mounted permanently, so the RF framelines aren't important.)

When I've changed formats (say, from medium format 645 to Leica), I've experimented/practiced a lot with shooting at different focal lengths that I have available, and taken mental notes on whether I found myself moving farther/closer regularly, or whether I often cropped the shot to fit.

It takes a while to hone in on the optimum focal lengths for one's own vision. I've been shooting with my M10-D for several years, and only recently realized that 28/40/75 was much better for me than, say, 35/50.

Edited January 16, 2022 by jslabovitz

[a.noctilux]

My point of view is

 

each lens can help the photographer to tell a story IF she/he has a story to tell