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The Case for the Standard LensA lot of folks claim the 50 is boring, just because the angle of view is the same as our own eyes. And I guess with a whole bag full of wideanglerey, zoomery and telemetry to choose from, the poor old 50 can easily end up right at the bottom, covered in dust. But, you know, I've been using good old fashioned human eyeballs for a tad over 45 years now. A couple of years ago I rediscovered Twin Lens Reflex medium format cameras,
after a twenty year break. Most of these have only the 'standard' optics - in
this case 80mm, same as 50mm for 35mm. It can be enormous fun and a real
challenge getting unusual views and interesting shots using just one single
focal length. You'd be surprised how limiting your choice of lenses to one can
actually make you more creative, not less! I've been having tremendous fun with
my old Rolleiflex lately, and it's meant relearning the way I see things. Apart from the very fast lens speed, there are a couple of other bonuses with a 'standard' lens. First, since this is the lens that usually gets tested by all the photo magazines when a new body comes out, manufacturers tend to make their 50 as optically perfect as possible. They drag all their top optical engineers, glass polishers and rocket scientists into a room, fire a couple of the junior ones just to encourage the others, and say, look, guys, this lens has to be GOOD! We mean like REALLY good. Like so sharp that even the most skeptical critic shooting Pan-F can pull 60 lines a millimeter at the edges wide open, and over 80 at the middle. And stopped down, our lens has to be sharp enough to blow up "Copyright Acme Lens Testing Co Ltd." at the edge of the chart to a 20 x 24! If not - DONNER UND BLITZEN!! So off they go, shivering with fear for their pensions and company cars, with a Bible in one hand and a copy of "The Japanese Practical Lens Builder" in the other, and after six months of working 16 hour days plus Saturdays and Sundays, the result is the best lens in the entire range. And it makes no difference if they work for Canon, Nikon or any of the Famous Five, you can bet your last pair of socks that the 50 will be a cracker! For some reason, the 50mm f-1.8 AI Nikkor is a touch better than their 1.4, with Olympus it's the other way round, the 1.4 was better. Makes no difference, I've used them all, and all of them are top performers. It also weighs almost nothing compared to even the most featherweight zoom. If I ever get arrested for taking a politically compromising photograph, and the judge were to sentence me to get rid of ALL my photo equipment except for ONE camera and ONE lens for the rest of my life, it would be a tie between the Nikon F3 and 50mm f-1.8, or the Rolleiflex. Nifty Fifties I've used have included the East German Pentacon, (amazing - it focused down to 33 cm, almost a macro lens) Canon, Minolta, and Olympus (excellent!). But my prize for ultimate sharpness goes to a non-Nikkor, sadly as far out of my income bracket as my wish for my own aeroplane. A local photographer lent me a Leica M4 rangefinder with its 50mm lens to play with for a day. I wish he hadn't. I ran some FP4 through it - man, was it ever sharp! I made a point of shooting either wide open or stopped down to no more than f-5.6 for most of my shots, and I shot a lot of textures like walls and canvas cloth. Is a Rolls-Royce worth the extra money? Of course it's not. BMWs are faster, Audis more comfortable, and for a luxury package the new Cadillacs are most impressive. But none of them have that special feeling of being in a Rolls-Royce. Or a Leica... The lens takes the picture, not the camera. Nobody will ever know what camera body took the picture. Unless it's a Hasselblad - their film magazines have two tiny notches on the edge, so that potential slide buyers can tell the shots were done on a Hasselblad. Big deal. Idiotic, and anyone choosing a sloppy Hasselblad photo over a better Bronica shot deserves all they get! (I borrowed a mini grinder from my friendly dentist once, and put the same two notches into my Yashicamat 124-G. Wow! A Hasselblad!! The pictures were suddenly much "better" - unmistakably Hasselblad!) Copyright © 2001 by Mike Graham. All rights reserved. |
