On Sep 8, 2013, at 11:04 AM, Stan Halpin <s...@stans-photography.info> wrote:
> On Sep 8, 2013, at 1:17 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: > >> You don't have to know anything about "35mm equivalent field of view" or >> "crop factors" to use Micro-FourThirds and FourThirds equipment ... They are >> irrelevant to the system, which is not derivative of anything from 35mm film >> cameras. > > Strictly speaking G, you are correct. Practically speaking, not so sure. I > grew up thinking in 35mm format. I learned the difference between a 28mm > lens, 50mm lens, 135mm lens etc. using a 35mm film camera. I am not able to > unlearn that. When I used a 645 camera, I always mentally calculated the > reverse crop factor: "let's see, the 150mm is really like a 100mm lens on a > 'normal' camera . . ." When I had my brief dalliance with m4/3 I had to > translate "12=24, 30=60", etc. After 8 years of APS-C usage, I still > translate 16-50 = 24-75. I imagine that there were large-format photographers > migrating to 35mm who spent the rest of their lives mentally calculating the > 35mm "crop factor" relative to the lenses they knew on their 4x5 or 8x10 > systems. > > So for me, maybe for Marnie as well, I find it quite useful when talking > about the m4/3 lenses to add a parenthetical comment about the relation of > m4/3 focal length X to 35mm focal length Y. You're relating a focal length on a format to a known Field of View, not focal length. It's only necessary when comparing equipment based on different capture formats. I only talk in EFoV when I'm talking with people unfamiliar with FourThirds format. Personally, I've never been hooked into thinking focal length equal to a FoV for my own use. I think in terms of ultra-wide, wide, normal, portrait-tele, tele, long tele. For any different format ... and I continue to shoot with several film and digital formats, I just grab a normal, wide, or tele lens relative to the format. Hasselblad ... normal is the Planar 80, wide is the Biogon 38, tele is the Sonnar 150. (6x6cm format) FourThirds ... normal is the ZD 25, portrait is the ZD 35 Macro, wide is the ZD 11-22. (13x17.3mm format) Leica M9 ... Normal is the Nokton 50, wide is the Ultron 28, tele is the M-Rokkor 90. (24x36mm format) Robot ... wide is the Schneider 30, normal is the Zeiss 40, I don't have a tele. (23x23mm format) It makes things easy: I have a few specific lenses and I know which of them is wide, normal, or tele on what camera. I don't bother with thinking numerical equivalents at all. G -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
