Let’s begin by making a statement: If you’ve arrived here through the interweb looking for “Lens Porn” then I’m afraid you’re very much mistaken and in the wrong place. We are going to discuss lenses, but there won’t be any photos of them, they’re modestly covered up on a shelf. Besides, they’re for using, looking through and not at. All the photographs presented in this post were made with a 50mm focal length.
More or less the Summicron 28mm has been glued to the camera for 10 months, before that it was the Summicron 35mm for many years I had absolutely no inclination to remove. Believe it or not I have two other lenses. Who knew? My bank manager for a start! One is the Summicron 90mm, I wrote about it over three years ago in a blog post imaginatively entitled “A Week at 90mm”. I can’t remember the 90mm being on the camera since, this of course opens a can of worms which we’ll very firmly and speedily put the lid on in case my wife is reading this. The other dust gatherer is my Noctilux 50mm, I wrote about that lens on this blog over two and a half years ago and it was titled “Leica Noctilux - A One Trick Pony?”. The worms are already back in the can so we won’t mention how often the Noctilux comes out to play. In my defence it has been used quite a bit, for example when I’ve been employed to photograph weddings or family shoots and portraits, but then only briefly.
I don’t have a particular problem with the Noctilux 50mm, in fact occasionally I like the results. I’ve spoken before that if you’re manual focussing at f/0.95 both you and your eyesight need to be on their game. Focus on the pupil of an eye and if you’re out then an eyelash will be sharp everything else a blur, your portrait useless. The redeeming fact of using a Noctilux is that you can shoot wide open at f/0.95, but that can be problematic. What it does do is create a surreal atmosphere to an image that you’re not going to get anywhere else, unless you wish to spend hours in photoshop. It can be quite beautiful. Anyway, the issue I have might be a contentious one with photographers. That age old “50mm or 35mm?” question, you see and hear it being asked all the time.
I can tell you that shot above would have been better with a 35mm, or maybe I wasn’t used to the framing having switched from 28mm to 50mm.
I’m firmly in the 35mm camp, or in the tent next door which contains the 28mm gang. Across the field are the 50mm campers, thery’re an odd lot. I could suggest not very inventive, lack a bit of creativity, slightly rigid in their approach. I won’t suggest that because I know it’s not entirely true and I’ll have them chasing me off the field altogether, throwing tentpoles and yelling “Henri Cartier-Bresson used a 50mm you know”. I wonder if they’d be able to capture the decisive moment as one of those tentpoles went through my leg. I’m kidding, put the tentpoles back, calm down. Of course there are those in the 35mm and 28mm tents that crop a photograph so severely that they may as well move in with the 50mm crowd. They’re so far away and then they’ve cropped to something like 70mm. Get in closer or stop fooling yourselves and buy a 50mm. Am I in enough trouble yet? Do I need to upset any more photographers, stir things up a little more?
No I don’t, there’s no need to be antagonistic. We’ll leave the camping analogy here, but those 50mm lot don’t have a problem, they’re happy campers by and large, okay, it could be said that they’re too in tents, sorry I meant “intense”. See what I did there? Not funny, I’ll move on. I think it’s more me and the way a 50mm makes me shoot, it’s just not very liberating. 50mm serves its purpose well and I feel that it’s more a point of what you feel comfortable with. Framing with a different mindset perhaps, I’m also speaking mostly from a Leica users point of view. I do feel as though 50mm is a little limiting. There’s the question of framing, I want the whole scene and I like to see everything in focus, from front to back. Yes, you can do that with a 50mm, but it’s a whole lot easier at 35mm and simpler again at 28mm. It quick and there’s less margin for error which is what you want with Street Photography, coupled with more of the scene which in most cases can be more interesting than Isolation of the subject matter. By the way, all I’ve been doing this week is documenting family life, some everyday photography. We’re not really allowed on the streets here in the U.K. and I wouldn’t want to waste valuable Street time carting the Noctilux 50mm around with me and missing the moments.
It’s been a tricky week for me photographically speaking. I’ve become unpracticed with manual focus at such large apertures and found it really difficult getting used to the different frame lines within the viewfinder. My eye sees a scene and I automatically know what I’m going to get with the 28mm or 35mm, not so with the 50mm. I’ve been shooting more in a pictorial way, not candidly which my preferred modus operandi. I’d say that a pictorial type image has been good to me over the years, but it’s not something I want to pursue now. I want something with more vitality and energy, even if it’s only everyday photography. As I said, no Street, just long walks with the children.
Essentially there’s no answer to the 35 or 50 conundrum. It’s down to personal preference. What? No conclusion? Hey, if you haven’t read this blog before you’ll rarely find it answers any questions posed or actually makes a salient point. Okay, I’ll make an exception. My advice? Get a 35mm.
I’ll end with some phots from later in the week. My eldest daughter and I met up for a walk and therefore further practice with the Noctilux 50mm. It was freezing cold to begin with and foggy by the end, which leant to some interesting light. I’ve excluded all the out of focus shots taken this week, I was considering including them and calling it “impressionism”…there were a lot of them!
That’s it. Bring on the Vaccine, I really need to be out on the streets, with my 28mm. As a footnote I can tell you that I was actually excited this morning as I removed that Noctilux. I’m not sure whether that says more about me than the lens!
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are taken using a Leica M with Noctilux 50mm Lens.
If you're interested in receiving new Blogposts via email please subscribe using the box below which is titled ‘The Latest Leica Biker Blogposts Delivered To Your Inbox’.