Using 50mm Lens For Landscape

Tom Potter · July 13, 2011

Hi All,

If a 50mm lens "sees" in a way that is very similar to the way the human eye sees , then wouldn't you
Want to shoot most landscapes with a 50mm lens, since, USUALLY, the way you saw a particular landscape,
just the way it is, would be the way you'd want it shot? (aside from cropping, and other adjustments
you may want / need to do, and, of course, at different angles at times) - but, again, it seems to me that there
Could / would be a lot of occasions when you want to use the 50mm lens so that it looks in the resulting image,
The way your eyes saw it in the first place.

Thx...Tom

pathfinder · July 13, 2011

Sorry Tom, for me, life is just not that simple. The nifty 50 is a great lens, but boy would I be handicapped if it was the only lens I had available.

If your goal is solely to record the landscape as seen, instead of interpret it, you might have a good point.

But sometimes with a 50mm lens, you cannot get everything you want to capture in, and sometimes with a 50mm lens you are too far away to have an image of your subject in the size you wish it to be.

Just like portraits, which are "traditionally" shot with ~85mm lenses; actually portraits are shot with anywhere from 24mm to 300mm, and so are landscapes.

Wide angle lenses allow one to emphasize the foreground and minimize the background, which is quite useful at times. Long lenses allow one to bring a distant part of the scene much closer for a close inspection.

I do not necessarily want my image to look as my eye saw it, but as my mind envisioned it.... That includes color, contrast, tonalities, sharpness or lack of it, etc, etc.

Go to this gallery - http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/popular/#501632154_2Xy4n - and try to guess what the focal length of my landscape shots were shot with, and then check the exif data which is available by passing your mouse over the larger image and clicking on the drop down box with the italicized i in it. You may be surprised.

I know that Marc Muench uses a 24mm and a 70-200 for most of his images, and favors wide angles.....

But you already know this. I looked at your gallery - http://www.tompotterphotography.com/Landscapes/Rocky-Mountain-National/4402286_MkMQ7#1069326693_mz4MG - and you are shooting with wide angles and long lenses as well - I see 12mm to 170mm in your own images.. So you aren't limiting yourself to 50mm either, are you??

Tom Potter · July 15, 2011

pathfinder wrote: »

Sorry Tom, for me, life is just not that simple. The nifty 50 is a great lens, but boy would I be handicapped if it was the only lens I had available.

If your goal is solely to record the landscape as seen, instead of interpret it, you might have a good point.

But sometimes with a 50mm lens, you cannot get everything you want to capture in, and sometimes with a 50mm lens you are too far away to have an image of your subject in the size you wish it to be.

Just like portraits, which are "traditionally" shot with ~85mm lenses; actually portraits are shot with anywhere from 24mm to 300mm, and so are landscapes.

Wide angle lenses allow one to emphasize the foreground and minimize the background, which is quite useful at times. Long lenses allow one to bring a distant part of the scene much closer for a close inspection.

I do not necessarily want my image to look as my eye saw it, but as my mind envisioned it.... That includes color, contrast, tonalities, sharpness or lack of it, etc, etc.

Go to this gallery - http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/popular/#501632154_2Xy4n - and try to guess what the focal length of my landscape shots were shot with, and then check the exif data which is available by passing your mouse over the larger image and clicking on the drop down box with the italicized i in it. You may be surprised.

I know that Marc Muench uses a 24mm and a 70-200 for most of his images, and favors wide angles.....

But you already know this. I looked at your gallery - http://www.tompotterphotography.com/Landscapes/Rocky-Mountain-National/4402286_MkMQ7#1069326693_mz4MG - and you are shooting with wide angles and long lenses as well - I see 12mm to 170mm in your own images.. So you aren't limiting yourself to 50mm either, are you??

Hey Pathfinder,

Thank you for your excellent, insightful response. I threw my question out there not looking for knowledge, but, rather, as incentive to spark interesting and energetic discussion. You make excellent points, all of which I agree with, and I thank you very much for your reply. I had been reading up on lenses, and I just thought my question would serve as fodder for all of us, to kind of stretch our photographic muscles. :O)

pathfinder · July 15, 2011

As an exercise, spending a day, or a week, shooting with only one lens, can help one develop a better understanding of it's benefits, and it's limitations.

My first camera had a fixed 45mm lens and I was truly thrilled when I finally was able to purchase my first real interchangeable lens SLR, as I looked forward to having long and short focal lengths to explore the world.

thonsu · August 11, 2011

50mm or so looks like your eye sees it within that frame. However, our eyes see that 50mm frame for a whole 180 degrees in all directions. So, unless you're ready to stitch together dozens of shots for a single "eye view" of a scene, you're better off getting a wider-angled lens.

This is all without mentioning the "mind's eye" responses of previous posters, which absolutely shouldn't go without mentioning.

theprincereturns · August 15, 2011

thonsu wrote: »

50mm or so looks like your eye sees it within that frame. However, our eyes see that 50mm frame for a whole 180 degrees in all directions. So, unless you're ready to stitch together dozens of shots for a single "eye view" of a scene, you're better off getting a wider-angled lens.

This is all without mentioning the "mind's eye" responses of previous posters, which absolutely shouldn't go without mentioning.

You hit the missing point. The perspective is the same, but the field of view is not. My 50mm is my best quality lens, so I always like the image quality. However I rarely use only the 50mm especially when doing landscape.

Tim Kamppinen · August 19, 2011

I don't want to go out and make xerox copies of the world. I want to create something beautiful/dramatic/fascinating/exciting/fillintheblank which may have little to do with the way something "really looks".

ghinson · August 19, 2011

As above, stitching a number of shots from the 50mm into a single shot would be an option in capturing a landscape without being constrained by the quality of focal length of your lens. I do that often with my 24-70, when the landscape is too big for 24mm and I need more detail.

Using 50mm Lens For Landscape

Comments