summicron 50 - necessary for M8

[Fotomiguel]

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I love the 75mm on the M8 with the magnifier X1,4 for portrait and specially looking for details.

 

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[lars_bergquist]

As can be seen by many excellent examples a wide lens can function as a portrait lens...

 

But a wide lens requires you to get much closer to the subject to frame... This may affect the environment to such a degree that the feeling you are attempting to capture is lost...

 

Strange thinking. Well yes, if 'portrait' to you means 'cut-off head on a plate' -- sorry, in a print -- then with a wide lens you have to get in close enough to get perspectival distortion.

 

But the point is that a portrait can be head, head-and-shoulders, half-figure, knee piece, full figure, full figure and environment, or group. You can use any lens for portraits (though of course not any arbitrary portrait) as long as you never ever approach an adult person closer than six feet--two meters. Infants with their smaller and flatter faces can be approached to within barfing range (remember that your M8 is not vomit-proof).

 

The only restriction is that you should not use very short wide angle lenses for group photos, because people near the edges will look unnaturally fat. If you must do it, don't at least put the ladies there, or you will be torn limb from limb. So it all depends on what kind of portrait is your thing. I do gladly admit that passport photos demand a fairly long lens, ideally 75 or 90mm on a M8. But I do not care for such boring pictures.

 

The old man from the Age of non-Interchangeable Lenses

[giordano]

Strange thinking. Well yes, if 'portrait' to you means 'cut-off head on a plate' -- sorry, in a print -- then with a wide lens you have to get in close enough to get perspectival distortion.

 

But the point is that a portrait can be head, head-and-shoulders, half-figure, knee piece, full figure, full figure and environment, or group. You can use any lens for portraits (though of course not any arbitrary portrait) as long as you never ever approach an adult person closer than six feet--two meters.

 

I've used everything from 14mm (full frame 35mm) to 200mm for portraits. It's just a matter of what you want to achieve.

[lars_bergquist]

I've used everything from 14mm (full frame 35mm) to 200mm for portraits. It's just a matter of what you want to achieve.

Exactly.

 

The "big head" -- the glorified passport mug shot -- became all the rage around 1932 with the introduction of the first hand cameras with interchangeable lenses, the Leica II and the Contax I. The reason is simple: This sort of thing had been practically impossible before then. Now anyone (well-heeled enough, of course) could do it with a 8.5 or 9 or 13.5cm lens. The fad faded away, as fads do, but it seems to have left a suspicion, lingering on through generations, that 'portrait' means a severed head. Severed heads should have gone out with the guillotine.

 

The difference between a portrait and a mug shot is that the portrait shows something of the subject's personality. For that you need more than the acreage from brow to chin: Body language, clothes, environment. Sometimes the 'environment' may even be human. Think of Titian's horrible portrait of Pope Paul III and his fawning nephews, where it is abundantly clear that all three simultaneously hate and despise each other ...

 

The old man from the Age of non-Interchangeable Lenses

[sfokevin]

Strange thinking. Well yes, if 'portrait' to you means 'cut-off head on a plate' -- sorry, in a print -- then with a wide lens you have to get in close enough to get perspectival distortion.

 

But the point is that a portrait can be head, head-and-shoulders, half-figure, knee piece, full figure, full figure and environment, or group. You can use any lens for portraits (though of course not any arbitrary portrait) as long as you never ever approach an adult person closer than six feet--two meters. Infants with their smaller and flatter faces can be approached to within barfing range (remember that your M8 is not vomit-proof).

 

The only restriction is that you should not use very short wide angle lenses for group photos, because people near the edges will look unnaturally fat. If you must do it, don't at least put the ladies there, or you will be torn limb from limb. So it all depends on what kind of portrait is your thing. I do gladly admit that passport photos demand a fairly long lens, ideally 75 or 90mm on a M8. But I do not care for such boring pictures.

 

The old man from the Age of non-Interchangeable Lenses

 

I was more thinking that a wide lens may require you to get right in someones face to get a shot... Moving that close into someone space may not always get you a candid shot or a smile...

[jevidon]

It all depends on the effect you want to achieve. Different focal lengths equal different perspectives. Try them all. It's the only way to answer your question. End of story.

[lars_bergquist]

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I was more thinking that a wide lens may require you to get right in someones face to get a shot... Moving that close into someone space may not always get you a candid shot or a smile...

Yes, there is the psychological situation. Making a portrait should not be, or be experienced as, a form of assault. There should be an easy relationship, a rapport between the photographer and the subject. With a painting, that kind of relationship was inevitable because several sittings were necessary. A photographer can rush in, stick a lens in the victim's face, and press the button. But assault photography is not portraiture.

 

Certainly many users of longish lenses are motivated by shyness, or contact fear. But position the camera, ANY camera, with ANY lens of ANY focal length, two feet from a person's face, and you get perspectival distortion: huge nose, receding forehead and chin, non-existent ears ... a malevolent caricature.

 

The other form of distortion I discussed was the wide angle 'egg effect'. With a very wide lens -- say, 21mm on film, 16 or 18 on the M8 -- make a picture with a tennis ball or any other spherical object close to the far edge of the image, or even in a corner. You will find that the sphere has changed into a drawn-out ellipsoid. This sort of distortion does also apply to human body parts. This is why human beings object to being at the periphery of a picture taken with a super wide angle lens -- if they have a chance to object.

 

But if you are aware of these risks, and avoid them, wide angle lenses are perfectly useable for what may be called 'environmental portraits'. What all this boils down to is: Don't get into a rut.

 

The old man from the Age of non-Interchangeable Lenses

[poynterama]

Nice distorsion! But not from the lens. He was slowly falling sleep.

I normally use the 50mm cron as my favourite street lens. It gives me a kind of polyvalency, but if I have an idea of a portrait, I use my lovely 75mm cron.

 

Sorry if this is a little off the topic, but what exactly do you mean by 'a kind of polyvalency'?

[Fotomiguel]

The 50mm a lens for everything. Landscape, arquitecture, street, portrait, etc. It is always on my M8. I would prefer a 35mm on a M8. Or not? I've been always thinking of getting a 35mm instead my 50mm cron, but finally I prefer the focusing ring of the 50mm instead of the focusing tab of the 35mm.

I only shift to another lens when I have an idea that needs to be shot with another lens.

It's very easy to shoot with a 50mm. You get what you see and its depth of field makes it versatile. I will love to use it on a full frame.

Recently I had the oportunity to try the 50mm sumilux. How nice!!!!! Still better than my very good cron. The one thing I don't like from the sumilux is the focusing tab. I just like this for wides.

[offshore]

"I personally find the 50 on the M8 kind of neither fish nor fowl"

 

I find this to be true for me as well. When I was shooting Leica film cameras the 50 was the welded on focal length but now that I've got an M8 for me it doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. I rarely use it for scenic and landscape work but it's a when you need one you need one situation. For portraiture and street head and shoulder shots I like the extra distance the 75 cron gives me on the M8 as well as the image quality. I also don't currently own a 50 and have been considering re investing in one but like you have mixed feelings about investing in something that may just sit in my bag for long periods. I really want a lux ASPH but it is a huge chunk of change, the Summarit is not as contrasty as I like and the cron with it's size and 39 mm filter size seems to be the ideal 50 for one who doesn't use one much but wants one. I've decided to wait for the new VC F1.0 Noct. and see how it fares before I invest. Malland I really like that B&W shot it has a classic look to it.

[lars_bergquist]

It all depends on the effect you want to achieve. Different focal lengths equal different perspectives. Try them all. It's the only way to answer your question. End of story.

Again, for the n-th time: Focal length does not change perspective. All lenses, with the exception of fisheye lenses, which we do not use on M cameras, produce the same rectilinear central perspective which has been exploited in Western art since Giotto and Uccello.

 

You can make a picture with a 16mm lens and crop out from it pictures that are perspectivally completely equivalent to a 21mm picture, a 24mm picture, a 28mm picture, a 35mm picture -- all the way up to 135mm or whatever, all taken from the same point, though with progressively deteriorating quality of course -- but it was perspective we were talking about, no? A demonstration of this is a standard feature of every g*****n textbook on photographic technique that I know of.

 

It is a change of camera distance that changes perspective, i.e. the geometrical (spatial) relationships of the different objects in the picture, especially foreground/background. A change of focal length, without a change of standpoint, does only change how much of the environs that wind up on the film or the sensor.

 

The old man from the Age of non-Interchangeable Lenses

[carcam]

That's the problem, you never used it. If you had you would of found it a wonderful lens and you would of got use to how to shoot with it.

This shot was taken with a 50 Lux ASPH but you can do the same with the cron.

First is the original, second is a crop with touchup in PS CS4.

 

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As demonstrated in other posts in this thread. It's not the lens you use it is the photographer.

 

Shootist- great picture and resolution (sometimes too harsh for a portrait but not here). You can even see her contact lenses in her eyes.

[Iansky]

I used my 50mm Summicron on my M6 and it was a great lens for portraits then, on my M8 I find it even better as it is now a 67mm equivalent lens.

 

At f5.6, the focus is just where you want it and it falls out of focus perfectly for me with a nice bokeh.

 

Here is one of my M8 portraits with the 50 Summicron at f5.6.

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[SJP]

Again, for the n-th time: Focal length does not change perspective. All lenses, with the exception of fisheye lenses, which we do not use on M cameras, produce the same rectilinear central perspective which has been exploited in Western art since Giotto and Uccello.

 

You can make a picture with a 16mm lens and crop out from it pictures that are perspectivally completely equivalent to a 21mm picture, a 24mm picture, a 28mm picture, a 35mm picture -- all the way up to 135mm or whatever, all taken from the same point, though with progressively deteriorating quality of course -- but it was perspective we were talking about, no? A demonstration of this is a standard feature of every g*****n textbook on photographic technique that I know of.

 

It is a change of camera distance that changes perspective, i.e. the geometrical (spatial) relationships of the different objects in the picture, especially foreground/background. A change of focal length, without a change of standpoint, does only change how much of the environs that wind up on the film or the sensor.

 

The old man from the Age of non-Interchangeable Lenses

+ 1

we need a sticky on technical stuff or better still a revitalisation of the wiki

[bybrett]

+ 1

we need a sticky on technical stuff or better still a revitalisation of the wiki

 

That's the basic stuff:) Totally agree - perspective comes from where you stand, lenses just crop what you see.

[offshore]

Again, for the n-th time: Focal length does not change perspective. All lenses, with the exception of fisheye lenses, which we do not use on M cameras, produce the same rectilinear central perspective which has been exploited in Western art since Giotto and Uccello.

 

You can make a picture with a 16mm lens and crop out from it pictures that are perspectivally completely equivalent to a 21mm picture, a 24mm picture, a 28mm picture, a 35mm picture -- all the way up to 135mm or whatever, all taken from the same point, though with progressively deteriorating quality of course -- but it was perspective we were talking about, no? A demonstration of this is a standard feature of every g*****n textbook on photographic technique that I know of.

 

It is a change of camera distance that changes perspective, i.e. the geometrical (spatial) relationships of the different objects in the picture, especially foreground/background. A change of focal length, without a change of standpoint, does only change how much of the environs that wind up on the film or the sensor.

 

The old man from the Age of non-Interchangeable Lenses

Somebody didn't get their nap today.

[sfokevin]

+ 1

we need a sticky on technical stuff or better still a revitalisation of the wiki

 

Yes...for that occasional search for "rectilinear central perspective"...

[Fotomiguel]

I used my 50mm Summicron on my M6 and it was a great lens for portraits then, on my M8 I find it even better as it is now a 67mm equivalent lens.

 

At f5.6, the focus is just where you want it and it falls out of focus perfectly for me with a nice bokeh.

I totally agree with you. Background is important too and with a 50mm cron, one has to care about the background. Of course, "neither fish nor fowl". Just perfect. For some kind of photography that's the best compliment. If my english is not too bad, that means that doesn't give any special look to the picture. Perfect to capture pictures more close to reality. Perfect for reportage. I understand that for more artistic photography, one needs lenses with more character. I agree with that too.

 

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[Mark2007]

Thanks for the answer. I decission making to buy the Cron 50 alrady. I happy and enjoy this lens again. I guess, because this lens for protrait, more picture I used to 28 and 35 I think appropriate for me. when I need for the sigle lens, I used 35 cron but i need many picture, I used 50 and 28.

 

best regrad :p

mark (owner the topic)

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