Is a 50 redundant if you have a 35?

[Al Brown]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Just follow Betteridge's law of headlines.

[Mute-on]

14 minutes ago, 01af said:

It's a commonplace notion that carrying lenses with adjacent focal lengths such as 28+35, 35+50, 50+75, etc made no sense. It was better to make wider steps such as 21+35+90, for example, to cover more ground with as few lenses as possible.

While this is a valid idea and makes sense especially for, say, travel photography, it's not true for everybody. I, for one, often carry (and use!) 35 and 50 mm as a two-lens kit. Sometimes I carry more lenses and still just use 35 and 50 mm. So no—a 50 mm lens is definitely not redundant when you already have a 35 mm.

If you feel you don't need a 50 mm lens because you already have a good 35 mm and you'd rather have a 75 or 90 mm to go with 35 then that's fine. If you feel you want a 50 mm to go with 35 then that's equally fine. So if someone suggests you should better buy anything but a 50 mm because that would be redundant then don't pay attention. What's good for someone else is not necessarily good for you (and vice versa).

Similarly, I have used 28 and 35 as a travel combination (on film) and didn’t find them too close together at all. Same with 28 and 50, and 35 and 50. Basically any combination of 28, 35 and 50 works for me and my expectations using Leica M. It may work for you too, or not. 

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[pgk]

I have 35 and 50 lenses. I rarely use the 50. But they are very different lenses. If a wider angle lens made a shorter one redundant, no maker would produce longer focal lengths. You may find that you prefer one over the other and there is nothing wrong with that, but making that decision needs to be based on experience and personal preference, and we are all different. Its really not as simple as looking at the numbers and cropping and so on.

[jaapv]

I think that your GAS is not fully developed yet.You should be on your 7th lens - at least

[FrozenInTime]

I can see 35mm only being a good clean solution with a 40 or 60 Mpixel sensor and a APO-Summicron or APO-Lanthar, but there are lots of other lenses that produce images that shine in areas other than resolution.

I still fret over using which one of 35, 40 or 50mm, with multiple apertures and haptics also in the mix. 28mm and 75mm are easier choices for me as they see only rare and  targeted use.

Too much choice raises as much inner conflict as does no choice, but perhaps it is a necessary step on the journey.

[spydrxx]

Don't fret, just get another focal length, use it, learn its characteristics and differences. If you find it doesn't suite you, sell it and try another.  You'll do this anywa sooner or later....might as well  be sooner.

[TomB_tx]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

For 50 years my M lens set was 35 (v2 Summicron), 50 (v3 Summicron) and 90 (Fat Tele Elmarit), and I found no need for other lenses. (I did also use an SLR for long lenses & macro.)

On film, 50 was my standard, and 35 seemed like a wide angle. The 90 was mainly for sports & portraits.

With M10 35 is my normal lens, and I seldom use a 50, as for my use the 35 can crop to a 50 FOV.

In recent years I'll pick a single lens to take (even for vacation trips, etc.) and instead of picking a lens for the shot, I find the shot which works with the lens.

 

[FrozenInTime]

1 hour ago, spydrxx said:

Don't fret, just get another focal length, use it, learn its characteristics and differences. If you find it doesn't suite you, sell it and try another.  You'll do this anywa sooner or later....might as well  be sooner.

Bought, over 30 year of exploration, trying to find the ideal lens set : 5 x 35mm , 4 x 40mm , 10 x 50mm

Retaining 3 x 35mm , 2 x 40mm , 5 x 50mm

I can think of three more of each 35mm and 50mm that would fill niches nicely, but that is not the solution !

[Olaf_ZG]

14 hours ago, trickness said:

 

They're all paintbrushes. What do you want to paint?

 

This I need to remember, next time I go to a Leica store, I just tell my wife I buy another brush 😇

[Olaf_ZG]

Often when I got out for a walk, I have two cams with me, one with 35mm, the other with 50mm. Perfect couple, and if I go out with one, I often miss the other one.

[Besprosvet]

I know that it doesn't sound much different, but in practical use a 50mm is way longer than a 35mm: try to take a head+shoulder portrait with each focal lenght and see how different you see the world when you move around the subject for the perfect framing.

Cropping wise, that has never been an option for me because when I use a focal lenght I think and feel the surrounding with that viewing angle. But it is also a really personal pet peeve: I mostly use lenses wide open because I want to enjoy the character on a lens as it was designed, without getting rid of the "worse" corners. That's the main reason why I don't use "full frame" lenses on cropped sensors.

All in all, as somebody else said, a 50 is something you'll still get, before or after, if you stay with Leica M... sooo maybe get a 75 or a 90 if you really desire a tele lens, but if you don't feel comfortable investing much on a top notch 50mm for the moment you can always get a cheap vintage one, just to have fun and to get used to the focal lenght. I bought an industar 50mm 3.5 for 19 euro, it's a lot of fun basically for free and it weights nothing, or some nice Leica, Zeiss or Voigt for a few hundreds more.

[budjames]

14 hours ago, pippy said:

This is something which you will simply have to find out for yourself.

My main lens these days is a 35mm and if carrying others (which is the norm) the other two lenses I will always grab first are a 28mm and a 50mm. Although there might not appear to be much of a difference between  28 / 35 / 50 in practice I've found that that there is sufficient difference for the way I shoot.

I do love the 75mm f/l but the reality has proven to be that if I carry a 75 it will be used for fewer than 5% of a typical day's snapping.

Best of luck!

Philip.

On my last four vacations, mostly to Europe, I only brought my APO-Summicron 35mm attached to my M10-R and now M11.

We are going to Prague and various cities in Germany for the Christmas markets. Our family will be spending Christmas out of the country in Munich, a family first. I will be only taking my Summilux 35mmk FLE and M11 along with my iPhone 14 Pro. I'm taking my Summilux 35mm instead of may APO-Summicron because I will probably be shooting in evenings and low light situations where the extra stop will be helpful.

A few years ago, we did a three week trip to New Zealand, Australia and Fiji. I took 2 M10s along with a Summicron 35mm, Summilux 50mm and APO-Summicron 75mm in a Hadley One bag. My most used lens was the 35mm (80%) followed by the 75mm. The 50mm never left my bag. The two bodies were nice, but after lugging this around for three weeks, it was tiring. Now I just take one body (M11 currently) and the 35mm lens in a Hadley Pro 2020 bag. The bag stays in the hotel most of the time and I just carry my camera on an UpStrap neck strap. Super simple!

Regards,
Bud James

Please check out my fine art and travel photography at www.budjames.photography.

[Herr Barnack]

5 hours ago, jaapv said:

I think that your GAS is not fully developed yet.You should be on your 7th lens - at least

We should all have at the bare minimum one M lens for each year that we have been shooting with M cameras.

I have been shooting with M cameras for 22 years now; I am hopelessly behind.  😢

[Rick in CO]

If you are looking for one camera for travel pics and can forgo fast aperture/shallow depth of field shots, try a 28/35/50 f4 Tri-Elmar.

Most of my travel pics are at f5.6-8 for good depth of field and you don't have to fumble with changing lenses.

I had mine CLA-ed and 6-bit coded and the quality on an M10R is impressive.

[Chimichurri]

I’ve shot 28-35-50

I shot 35 as my only lens for 2 years. 

For me.

-35 if only one lens. 

-28&50 if you want a pair. 

28 is like a 35 but infinitely more useful. And when paired with a 50 then it renders the 35 useless to me. It’s like being in the middle of nowhere. 

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by Chimichurri

[BradS]

To me, the 50mm and 28mm focal lengths are necessary and the the 35mm is the redundant focal length.

I kinda see the 35mm focal length as a "nice to have" compromise between 50mm and 28mm.

I only use the 35mm focal length as part of a minimal, one body, one lens snap-shot kit.

 

[pippy]

1 hour ago, Herr Barnack said:

We should all have at the bare minimum one M lens for each year that we have been shooting with M cameras.

I have been shooting with M cameras for 22 years now; I am hopelessly behind.  😢

I'm at 42 years of shooting and so don't want to think about the economic consequences of you suggestion...

Philip.

Edited November 12, 2022 by pippy

[TheEyesHaveIt]

Well, you all managed to convince me so I'm grabbing a 50 lux. I personally like the 35 so far - and many of my LR catalog shots are around there. Looking at some of the comparisons focal length field of views, I liked what the 50 did vs. the 35 and felt like it'll be a good companion. I think instead of a 28, I am leaning towards getting a 24 anyway, which I found more interesting with a 35 than a 28.

Like some folks have said though...at some point, I may end up owning all of these. Good thing is there's a strong resale market for Leica lenses!

Edited November 12, 2022 by TheEyesHaveIt

[Lelmer]

2 hours ago, TheEyesHaveIt said:

...at some point, I may end up owning all of these.

...

You got it in 2 pages... 😊

Great choice...the 50 Lux Asph is my favorite one 

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[yanidel]

When shooting street, I tend to use 35mm in busy cramped streets or cities with high rises. (New York for example)

50mm works better for me in cities with large avenues, parks, riversides, bridges. (That would be Paris). 50mm (I use 60mm in my case) also gives an extra capability to blur backgrounds, especially the F1-1.4 lenses.

So on a typical outing, I'll switch lenses depending on which part of the city I am in. Not from shot to shot.

This being said I often take one of either lenses only. Both are useable as single lens, and it forces you to work some shots a little more. So yes, I'd recommend adding a 50mm lens to your 35mm based on my experience.

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by yanidel