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Feel free to maintain your opinion, but I can't agree with it. > I cannot recommend a 35mm for close-up pictures of people. Also a little too long. Emotional

Feel free to maintain your opinion, but I can't agree with it. > I cannot recommend a 35mm for close-up pictures of people. Also a little too long. Emotional distance, framing difficulty, yada yada. 28mm is probably the best bet for casual candids with relatives for the reasons I listed. > The perspective is too weird. Who cares. If you fail to capture a memorable moment because you were busy looking into the viewfinder focusing and framing, you fail, period. Very hard to do with a wide lens. Distortion is just not a problem for casual shots of loved ones. It's not fashion or advertisement-- for the purposes of capturing memory & feeling you may want to emphasise intimacy and presence rather than perfection of proportions. > It's really not. I would start at like 90mm equivalent for fashion or general portraiture (i.e. not candids). Hard disagree. Wow. A prime of 90mm poses way too many constraints to work with. Unless we're talking professional photography, at which point you might be OK investing loads in a high-quality zoom/a spacious studio/lights/etc., there's really no point in shelling out for a lens that long that would be useless in most scenarios.

Finnucane 4y ago
It used to be pretty common in ye olde dates for studio photographers to use 85 or even 105mm lenses to get flatter fields and a little distance from the subject.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  We aren't talking about studio or generally professional photography are we... But yes, the longer the lens the more emotional distance. A wide lens puts the viewer right in the middle of the action.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    I’ve never heard someone talk about “emotional distance” as being related to focal length and to be honest it doesn’t have the ring of truth. Longer focal lengths don’t even create physical distance. What happens is that people sometimes choose to step farther away when using a longer focal length, but you don’t have to do that.
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      Common hobbyist wisdom is that you use a longer lens to make the subject feel closer without coming closer. This is subtly wrong. In the eye of the viewer the distance eliminated through focal length is felt in a different way. If you want a photo that takes you back to being close to someone, come close and use a wider lens.
klodolph 4y ago
You're personally excited about wide-angle lenses and you seem to be convinced that everyone else will feel the same way about them, for candids of friends and family, and I just don't think that's true. You say that longer lenses create "emotional distance" but this is, to be honest, one of the most horeshit photography opinions I've heard. The lens doesn't create emotional anything, it just changes what you get in the frame. I like the way the photos in the article look. They're not your style. I’ve spent time with a lot of other hobby photographers and there’s always a few people with preferences like yours, but it’s never been a majority, and most photographers I’ve met have the humility to recognize that their own personal choices aren’t automatically the right choices for others. > Who cares. If you fail to capture a memorable moment because you were busy looking into the viewfinder focusing and framing, you fail, period. Very hard to do with a wide lens. Framing is not a problem that goes away if you use wide-angle lens. You can shoot wide and crop later, but all you're doing is changing when you're making the framing decisions, and the crop-later approach has the disadvantage that when you crop, it's too late to reframe. Framing is not easier with wide-angle lenses versus normal lenses. It's easier to get something in-frame, but harder to keep something out. There's no "default" lens which is right for everyone or every circumstance. I'm also not sure why it would take me longer to frame or focus with a 50mm lens. For candids, I almost always use an autofocus camera these days. It focuses at the touch of a button. > Wow. A prime of 90mm poses way too many constraints to work with. I've been using a 90mm equivalent for a long, long time. It's my go-to lens for when a friend who's a makeup artist or costume designer wants a good picture of their work, or when somebody wants a simple portrait, and I think it's easy to work with. Maybe I just got used to working within those constraints. And maybe... just maybe... you got used to working with the constraints of a 35mm lens, and you've forgotten what it felt like when you were first dealing with those constraints. I've done a lot of personal with 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm equivalent primes. There's a reason why people who get a set of three prime lenses most often get three lenses in this range or something similar--like 28mm, 45mm, 110mm. It's easy to fall in love with the look of a wide-angle lens and then get disillusioned with it. You find that you're including too much stuff in-frame that you don't want, or you find that you're shooting too close to people and they look distorted. That's why I recommend that people spend some time with a wide-angle lens before deciding if they want to purchase a camera with a fixed wide-angle lens, like the Ricoh GR III. The Ricoh GR III is like $900 and forces you to use a 28mm perspective or crop in post--not everyone is going to like that.

Finnucane 4y ago

It used to be pretty common in ye olde dates for studio photographers to use 85 or even 105mm lenses to get flatter fields and a little distance from the subject.

throwaway290 4y ago
We aren't talking about studio or generally professional photography are we... But yes, the longer the lens the more emotional distance. A wide lens puts the viewer right in the middle of the action.
- klodolph 4y ago
  I’ve never heard someone talk about “emotional distance” as being related to focal length and to be honest it doesn’t have the ring of truth. Longer focal lengths don’t even create physical distance. What happens is that people sometimes choose to step farther away when using a longer focal length, but you don’t have to do that.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    Common hobbyist wisdom is that you use a longer lens to make the subject feel closer without coming closer. This is subtly wrong. In the eye of the viewer the distance eliminated through focal length is felt in a different way. If you want a photo that takes you back to being close to someone, come close and use a wider lens.

klodolph 4y ago

You're personally excited about wide-angle lenses and you seem to be convinced that everyone else will feel the same way about them, for candids of friends and family, and I just don't think that's true. You say that longer lenses create "emotional distance" but this is, to be honest, one of the most horeshit photography opinions I've heard. The lens doesn't create emotional anything, it just changes what you get in the frame. I like the way the photos in the article look. They're not your style. I’ve spent time with a lot of other hobby photographers and there’s always a few people with preferences like yours, but it’s never been a majority, and most photographers I’ve met have the humility to recognize that their own personal choices aren’t automatically the right choices for others. > Who cares. If you fail to capture a memorable moment because you were busy looking into the viewfinder focusing and framing, you fail, period. Very hard to do with a wide lens. Framing is not a problem that goes away if you use wide-angle lens. You can shoot wide and crop later, but all you're doing is changing when you're making the framing decisions, and the crop-later approach has the disadvantage that when you crop, it's too late to reframe. Framing is not easier with wide-angle lenses versus normal lenses. It's easier to get something in-frame, but harder to keep something out. There's no "default" lens which is right for everyone or every circumstance. I'm also not sure why it would take me longer to frame or focus with a 50mm lens. For candids, I almost always use an autofocus camera these days. It focuses at the touch of a button. > Wow. A prime of 90mm poses way too many constraints to work with. I've been using a 90mm equivalent for a long, long time. It's my go-to lens for when a friend who's a makeup artist or costume designer wants a good picture of their work, or when somebody wants a simple portrait, and I think it's easy to work with. Maybe I just got used to working within those constraints. And maybe... just maybe... you got used to working with the constraints of a 35mm lens, and you've forgotten what it felt like when you were first dealing with those constraints. I've done a lot of personal with 35mm, 50mm, and 90mm equivalent primes. There's a reason why people who get a set of three prime lenses most often get three lenses in this range or something similar--like 28mm, 45mm, 110mm. It's easy to fall in love with the look of a wide-angle lens and then get disillusioned with it. You find that you're including too much stuff in-frame that you don't want, or you find that you're shooting too close to people and they look distorted. That's why I recommend that people spend some time with a wide-angle lens before deciding if they want to purchase a camera with a fixed wide-angle lens, like the Ricoh GR III. The Ricoh GR III is like $900 and forces you to use a 28mm perspective or crop in post--not everyone is going to like that.