50mm for Landscape?

[Dao]

Typically, on today's cameras, the 50mm lens will give you a smaller field of view than it might have with film cameras....something along the lines of what an 80mm lens would have.. This means that your landscaped will reflect that difference.

I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).

hum...

EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.

So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not. 50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.

 

[musicaleCA]

Typically, on today's cameras, the 50mm lens will give you a smaller field of view than it might have with film cameras....something along the lines of what an 80mm lens would have.. This means that your landscaped will reflect that difference.

I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).

hum...

EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.

So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not. 50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.

Reference?

 

[Jeff Canes]

--What I'm confused about is, why would you want to uses a normal focal length for landscapes? You can get a whole lot more landscape with a wide-angle or ultra-wide-angle focal length like 24mm or even 17mm--

It just depends on the makeup of scene and your shooting style

 

[manaheim]

Another trick to keep in the bag is that you can take multiple overlapping shots with the 50mm and stitch them together. This is a bit more work, but gives you an INCREDIBLY sharp image which is also appropriately wide to meet your landscape needs (and also has a lot of pixels if you want to print an image the size of a grayhound bus with crazy level of detail)

D'oh! Why did I think of that right away? Not exactly practical for long exposures though; I had a hell of a time getting two shots stitched together that were 4min exposures (though that had much to do with having to take the camera off my tripod and replacing the battery in between shots). Took a bit of fixing to the darn thing print-ready.

It's actually quite doable... at least if you have photoshop and keep your settings consistent between exposures. The biggest challenge is often the color balancing and getting the light just right.

Here is one I did QUICKLY just as an experiment... I'm not even totally happy with the results, but I was shocked at how good it came out given the relatively small amount of effort I put into it. (I'm waiting for the weather to clear up so I can go redo this... too much haze)

Oh it's also probably worth noting that the original image of this thing is 29,000 pixels wide.

(btw, forgive the stupid watermark...)

 

[manaheim]

I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).

hum...

EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.

So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not. 50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.

Reference?

Musicale, you are correct. Dao, you are close but slightly off. The physical effect of reducing the width of the view on a lens is universal across lenses. So an 18mm full frame AND an 18mm crop frame lens would BOTH work as a roughly 27mm lens on a crop sensor.

I think you're assuming that the lens manufacturers actually advertise their crop-sensor lenses as an appropriately more tight focal length to compensate for the cameras they would be mounted on, but this is not actually the case... they merely don't stress as much about the outer edges of the glass when making an 18mm crop-sensor-targeted lens as they would for an 18mm full-frame-targeted one.

 

[Dao]

I believe you're refering to crop sensor frames, and in that case it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor, and thus the FoV is the same at equal focal lengths on a full frame body with lenses designed for full frame sensors (say, and EF lens on a 1D).

hum...

EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.

So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not. 50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.

Reference?

Well, basically focal length is the optical property of the lens. The type of digital body it mounts to has nothing to do with it's optical properties. Therefore, a lens has a focal length of 50mm, it is going to be 50mm whether it is design for full frame or cropped body (i.e. EF or EF-S in Canon system).

So now, the Field of View.
Let say, for a EF lens mounted on a full frame body. Assuming 100% (which is not the case, but I just use it as an example) of the light passing through the lens falls onto the Full frame sensor. When the same EF lens mounted on a cropped sensor body such as Canon EOS 40D, only 40% of the light falls onto the sensor. Because the sensor only capture the center part of the image. So 60% of the light are just wasted.

So, the lens manufacturers start to make lenses only work in cropped body. Those lenses actually have the similar optical properties as the one made for full frame except the light that pass through the lens cover smaller area (40%). For a cropped body, it is not a problem at all. In other words, it seems like the lens crop the image for you already at the lens. (smaller field of view)

Hope this help.

 

[Dao]

hum...

EF-S 17-55mm lens at 17mm on 40D vs EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm on 5D.
Even both are at 17mm, but the field of view are different.

So, it does not matter if the lens is designed for cropped sensor body or not. 50mm focal length, whether it is EF or EF-S, the field of view are different when mounted to a cropped body then mounted to a full frame body/film body.

Reference?

Musicale, you are correct. Dao, you are close but slightly off. The physical effect of reducing the width of the view on a lens is universal across lenses. So an 18mm full frame AND an 18mm crop frame lens would BOTH work as a roughly 27mm lens on a crop sensor.

I think you're assuming that the lens manufacturers actually advertise their crop-sensor lenses as an appropriately more tight focal length to compensate for the cameras they would be mounted on, but this is not actually the case... they merely don't stress as much about the outer edges of the glass when making an 18mm crop-sensor-targeted lens as they would for an 18mm full-frame-targeted one.

haha did I misunderstand the original statement from Musicale? hum .. if yes .. I am sorry.

Edited : Now, I re-read my statement ... hahaha .. what did I just say ... This is what happened when I am still sleepy at 5am ... The FoV is the same!! I cannot believe I said that ...

 

[musicaleCA]

Yadda yadda, cool picture here...

Hrm, well perhaps I'm a little jaded. My best experience with such technique was this shot, and in that I had to replace the battery for the second exposure, so I couldn't compose the second shot (on the left) as closely as I wanted to the first (right). Bloody focal length changed on me and I didn't se it until I was back at my computer, but that's what I get for shooting in the dark without a flashlight. >.< *grumble*

Reference?

Musicale, you are correct. Dao, you are close but slightly off. The physical effect of reducing the width of the view on a lens is universal across lenses. So an 18mm full frame AND an 18mm crop frame lens would BOTH work as a roughly 27mm lens on a crop sensor.

I think you're assuming that the lens manufacturers actually advertise their crop-sensor lenses as an appropriately more tight focal length to compensate for the cameras they would be mounted on, but this is not actually the case... they merely don't stress as much about the outer edges of the glass when making an 18mm crop-sensor-targeted lens as they would for an 18mm full-frame-targeted one.

haha did I misunderstand the original statement from Musicale? hum .. if yes .. I am sorry.

Edited : Now, I re-read my statement ... hahaha .. what did I just say ... This is what happened when I am still sleepy at 5am ... The FoV is the same!! I cannot believe I said that ...

Ah, the dangers of posting while sleepy. At least my ego can stay intact thinking that I'm always right. :lmao: (Just kidding.)

 

[manaheim]

Hrm, well perhaps I'm a little jaded. My best experience with such technique was this shot, and in that I had to replace the battery for the second exposure, so I couldn't compose the second shot (on the left) as closely as I wanted to the first (right). Bloody focal length changed on me and I didn't se it until I was back at my computer, but that's what I get for shooting in the dark without a flashlight. >.< *grumble*

Ha... we are always our harshest critics. I looked at that shot and my instant reaction was "whoa! nice shot!". I mean it maaaaaaaaaaaaybe looks like you missed the focus a bit (unless the humidity just caused it to fuzz up a bit) but I seriously don't see any major problems with that shot beyond that.

 

[musicaleCA]

Aha, well thanks manaheim. For the most part the reaction to that pano has been "wow, nice shot" but naturally I got really picky when I prepared it for printing on ImageKind. I did get the focus off on the second snap to the left; it was actually sharper! So I had to blur it up a bit so the darned break between the two shots looked more natural. But I digress. :greenpbl: (Any fuzziness was probably a combination of 4min exposure, humidity, and the relatively wide aperture; I just didn't feel like sitting for 16 minutes waiting for one exposure for more DoF.)

 

[Dwig]

...it only applies if the lens was designed for a full frame sensor and you're sticking on a crop frame body. If the lens was designed for a crop frame (like Canon's EF-S lenses, say on a 40D or Rebel) then there is no crop factor...

incorrect.

A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens regardless of whether it is designed to cover a 24x36mm image area (aka "full frame") or an APS-c image area ("crop sensor" or "DX" in Nikon-speak). On a "full frame" body, film or digital, a 50mm lens is about 20% longer than "normal". 50's were "standard" in the old film days, but never were a "normal" focal length; they were always slightly long. On an APS-c body, a 50mm lens is about 80-90% longer than "normal", giving a modest telephoto effect.

Either way, a 50mm lens would fall into a range that is not the most commonly used lens for landscapes. While any lens of any focal length can, with the right subject, produce very effective landscape images, the most commonly used focal lengths are either rather wide (28mm to 18mm on "full frame" or 18mm to 10mm on APS-c) or rather long (200mm+ or 135mm+, respectively).

Probably the only "landscape" shot of mine that I really think is good and that was taken with a 50mm was taken on 35mm full frame film. While most would class it as a landscape, it is more a portrait of a tree than anything else. The bulk of my landscapes have been taken with wide lenses in the 20-24mm range (film) or on digital with the equivalent of 20-24mm lenses. A small portion have been done with long lenses. My "eye" tends to see images that are either vistas or details. I don't seem to "see" the middle ground between the two, at least with landscapes. Most landscape photograhers seem to have a similar vision based on the population distribution of the most common published works.

 

[musicaleCA]

Hrm, now I just went to do test shots to show what I meant, but whoops, go figure I was indeed wrong. (That's right, I can admit when I'm wrong. ) The EF-S at 50mm has an equivalent FoV to the EF 50mm. (disappointingly, that means my EF-S 17-85 is effectively a 27-136; thankfully pincushion distortion is almost non-existant, but I'm adding this to my reasons to replace the damn thing and it's cursed CA with L glass and a decent wide-angle) *grumbles at camera salepersons telling him that they would be the same...another reason to go full frame...grrr...*

Thank you Dwig for correcting my error. I was pretty darn sure I was right (seems that whenever crop factors are explained, the lack of a difference between lenses designed for the smaller frame and those designed for full frames is left out). Oh well.

 

[manaheim]

Aha, well thanks manaheim. For the most part the reaction to that pano has been "wow, nice shot" but naturally I got really picky when I prepared it for printing on ImageKind. I did get the focus off on the second snap to the left; it was actually sharper! So I had to blur it up a bit so the darned break between the two shots looked more natural. But I digress. :greenpbl: (Any fuzziness was probably a combination of 4min exposure, humidity, and the relatively wide aperture; I just didn't feel like sitting for 16 minutes waiting for one exposure for more DoF.)

Totally understand... kinda surprised on the 16 minutes thing, though. Most of my night shots (at least the ones that would have that level of light) run around 30 seconds at F8 or so... give or take. What were you doing that took 16 minutes?

 

[wmc1117]

Thank you for the input guys, I am looking into the 50mm 1.8 for now cause I know it isn't that expensive but I also may want to look for a good quality walking around lens and a wide angle, hmm any suggestions?

 

[wmc1117]

Oh, and Manaheim great shot of the Charles and Boston, see that view a whole lot cause I go to school at Bentley University in Waltham, about 15 minutes from Boston