I let this pass before, since there's not any point in arguing with
someone who /knows/ /everything/ .
True normal is a convention. That convention is the normal focal lenght
is the diagonal of the film or in modern day sensor format. Most non
35mm cameras with fixed lenses have a normal focal lenght that follows
that rule. For 6x9 it's 105mm or if you prefer inches 2 1/4 x 3 1/4
works out to about 4 inches, 4x5 is approximately a 6 inch lens as as
examples. If you look at most any fixed camera made by any manufacturer
in the last 100 years you'll find that the manufacturer fitted it with a
"normal" lens. That's been the definition since at least the turn of
the last century.
There are historical reasons that 50~58mm lenses were sold as normal
lenses on interchangeable lens 35mm cameras, but that was an exception
to the general rule. Because of this there was some bleed over from the
interchangeable lens category to fixed lens 35mm cameras. Even with
that a lot of fixed lens35mm cameras were manufactured with 40-45mm lenses.
35mm SLRs are not the end all and be all of photography.
With that I'll say no more on the subject, at least not in this thread.
On 1/7/2010 10:06 AM, J.C. O'Connell wrote:
there is no "true normal", normal is not an exact defintion of a focal
length, and 50mm was what came with many many slrs for many years, one
could argue that that was "normal", not 43mm or 55mm
on film
--
J.C. O'Connell (mailto:[email protected])
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-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Adam Maas
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:21 PM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
Subject: Re: Wide angle for K-X?
On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 3:47 PM, J.C. O'Connell<[email protected]>
wrote:
right on the 35, but the 28 is wider than most
anything called normal in the old days, I recall
when 55mm on 35mm film was "normal". Regardless,
the K24/3.5 is pretty damn good too, which I forgot
to mention...
--
J.C. O'Connell (mailto:[email protected])
28mm is a 42mm-e on APS-C, pretty much exactly the same as Pentax's 43mm
'true normal' and right on the 40-45mm normal range that was typical for
fixed-lens RF's and P&S's back in the day as well as being moderately
common in SLR's from the mid-70's on. A 35 is a long normal on APS-C.
55mm as a normal was only ever an abberation of 60's SLR designs, as it
was a bit easier to design for a SLR mount than 50mm that had been the
the 'normal' for 35mm since the original Leica was introduced in the
late 1920's. Many systems never even had a 55 normal or only had exotic
55's (usually an f1.2 or a macro). 55's as the standard on SLR's only
lasted about 15 years from the early 60's to the late 70's, which was
also when 40's and 45's became increasingly common as normals from
Leica, Minolta, Nikon, Zeiss (Contax) Olympus and Pentax. Canon, Olympus
and Nikon only did exotic 55's.
35mm has traditionally had a longer normal than other formats, due to
Oskar Barnack's taste in lenses.
--
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New;}}
\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20 I've just upgraded to Thunderbird 3.0 and the
interface subtly weird.\par
}
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