Re: pentax and the best bokeh for the buck It is not possible to directly compare human vision to a photo, because
humans do not see an entire scene all at one time. Our eyes rapidly shift
from one point to another, while our brain "stitches" all the individual
views together and gives us the impression that we are viewing everything
all at once.
That having been said, the question is what makes a lens "normal."
A normal lens creates images where the spatial and size relationships
between the various objects in the frame look as they would to the human
eye.
That quality is critical to those of us that take
documentary/historical/architectural photos, where our main objective is to
record the scene for posterity in a way that it will look as closely as
possible to the way it would have been seen had the viewer actually stood
there in person.
I once shot a street scene using a 24mm lens-the only lens I had with me at
that moment. There were two buildings--a 3 story structure on one corner,
and a 10-story bank building located about a half block further back in the
distance. The apparent perspective distortion produced by the wide angle
lens resulted in a photo where the 10-story building was not even twice as
tall as the 3-story one. Anyone looking at that photo could sense
intuitively that something about it just wasn't right, even though they
might not have been able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong.
I typically use a 50mm lens to record such scenes, because that focal length
renders objects that retain their relative sizes when compared with other
objects in the scenes. My digital camera can zoom to an equivalent of 43mm,
and I normally use that focal length when shooting digital. I have found it
to be best at keeping relative size differences constant. The 50mm lens
that I use in 35mm is close enough to maintain the spatial relationships,
and the 55mm lens, while a tad on the tele side, is still acceptable.
Many photographers do not fully grasp the effects of using focal lengths
that fall beyond the normal range. While such lenses are effective at
producing special views (assuming that the photographer knows what he wants,
and understands which lens to use to achieve his desired effect) the normal
lens holds a special place for those of us whose objective is recording
scenes that are as close to reality, in terms of perspective, as possible.
I have become so dependent on my normal lenses that I often take only a
single normal lens when I take my camera out. Any "zooming" I need can be
done with my feet. Strange as it seems, I don't miss the variety of focal
lengths offered by zoom lenses, and my documentary record shots maintain a
consistency among all of them, as the same focal length was used for all the
shots. That is especially good when shooting multiple angles of the same
building or street scene. The viewer does not have to mentally adjust to
compensate for varying focal lengths used when the shots were taken, as
would typically have been the case had a zoom lens been used.
Jeremy
|
|
