Tips & Tricks
Imagine That You Are The Last Photographer On Earth
1x Blog-Tips & Tricksby Editor Vicente Dolz
Imagine that you are the last photographer, the only one left in the world!
You will have to take charge of photographing all kinds of things: weddings, birds in flight, street shots, landscapes, fine art nudes and all the other subjects.
And you can only use one lens for all of these genres.
Which lens would you choose?
By definition, the focal length is the distance in millimetres that exists between the focal plane of the sensor and the optical centre of the lens.
The smaller the focal length, the larger the angle of vision.
The larger the focal length, the smaller the angle of vision.
The angle of vision determines the visual field of the lens and allows us to classify the lenses into different groups.
Wide angle lenses
The wide angle lenses cover the angle of view between 64° and 84° degrees of visual field what means a larger angle of vision than the human eye.
It is most commonly used for landscape photography – usually between 12 mm and 24 mm. For street photography, the most common focal lengths are 28 mm and 35 mm, sometimes 50 mm.
“AUTUMN FLOODING” by Paolo Lazzarotti
“Godafoss” by Jeffrey C. Sink
“Rise Up” by Carlos F. Turienzo
“La Albufera” by Vicente Dolz
Standard lens
We call a lens "normal" when the field of vision is similar to the human eye, not including peripheral vision. These are the lenses between 50 mm and 70 mm.
Traditionally 50 mm is the most used lens (Bresson, Cappa, Plossu, Frank) and suitable for many disciplines.
“Ana” by Marius Cinteză
“Atrani beach – Italy” by Arnon Orbach
“Let Go” by Paulo Abrantes
“No Stars But Stripes” by Wayne Pearson
“Wallflower” by Kurt Weinmeister
Telephoto lens
The telephoto lens has a focal length greater than 50mm (for full frame sensors or 35 mm film).
Long telephoto lenses are mainly used in sports. Very common are the 300 mm telephoto lens, but the most used is the 70-200 mm zoom because it can be used for many occasions.
The short telephoto lenses, 85 mm, 100 mm, 135 mm are used frequently for portrait photography. The 50 mm lens is also used for portrait photography, depending on the photographer’s choice and what he/she wants to realise.
“Action” by Theo Luycx
“Dark knight II” by Gerd Moors
“Fun in the North Sea” by Claudio Piccoli
“Great Grey Owl” by Martina Stutz
“Three share a swing” by John Bull
“To play with the nature” by Claudio Moretti
There is a lot to talk about when it comes to the focal length and which one is the best to use. Depending on the type of photographs you want to take, you will choose one or another. Sport photographers, macro photographers or street photographers will all choose a different one.
So, do you know which one you would choose if you were the only photographer left on earth?
