I was reading this thread about the oly 17mm, and I came across an intereting comment that way like this: "Many people like the 35, 50, 90 progression of focal length, and should be right home with the 17. I prefer myself the 28,40, 75..." And it got me thinking... Which progression do you prefer, which progression do you use and why? What does each have to offer? Thank you *note* It quickly became clear that I forgot to put in "I use a different progression" and "I use zooms"... anyone know how to edit polls?
The answer I would choose is not there. In reality I just don't care, because I use zooms today. In my film days I had a 24mm, a 50mm and an 80-200mm. If I did not prefer zooms or had to choose only primes, I would prefer the progression 24mm, 50mm and 100mm. Times have changed. When I bought my film camera thirty years ago, zooms were not as good as they have become. Today I have two small lenses, the 9-18mm and the 14-150mm, and can do much more than thirty years ago with much lighter gear and without compromising my quality requirement too much.
I have about 30 functioning cameras with all kinds of field of views, most of them with just one focal length. Not being able to carry all my cameras with me, has ridden me from field of view favoritism I still tough have a soft spot for fisheyes. Too bad my Mamiya fisheye weighs about 2 kilos…
Like most others I use zoom lenses these days, but still I preset the focal length most of the times: I choose the perspective and then foot-zoom for the picture. I do this with the 7-14mm (mostly preset to 10mm, sometimes 9mm) and the 14-45mm (preset to 14, 20, 28 or 45mm). I seem to be one of the few people who prefer the 28mm field-of-view (on a 35mm film camera) to 24mm, hence my preference for 14mm on my G1. Must go now, dog wants to walk :smile:
Like Piktor I prefer the progression of 24,50,100 of primes, though I spent many years with 28,50,135 and it was good. To be honest I prefer to wander around with a standard zoom. I know where the majority of my view lies and that is from 24 to 70ish, I only occasionally wish it went a bit longer. My ideal m4/3 lens would be a 12-65.
I've never owned enough primes to notice a progression, but I suppose I'll be observing which lenses I actually reach for now.
