35mm Adapter Questions
 

I see that a lot of people on here keep using the settings of
f1.4-2.4
FD2-4.8
50mm-55mm lens

my question is that is it standard to use a 55mm lens for the best results?
I picked up a monster of a lens thats 80mm to 200mm and am wondering "is it worth it" to shoot with a 200mm end? is that purely becoming a zoom issue?
thanks for any assist
Q

Not sure about it being a standard or not. I would have thought it's more likely because you can get hold of fast FD lenses 2nd hand that are 55mm.

Personally I have three , lens; 28mm, 55mm, & 75mm-105mm Zoom. The fastest lens is the 55mm with f/1.4. The 28mm is usefull for wide angle, but the Zoom lens gives me an even shallower DOF at the expense of needing more light.

I have GS400 with LEtus35A and used 4 lenses so far-all nikon:50mm f1.8, 28mm AIS f2.8, 85mm AIS f2, Zoom 28-80 G version(no aperture,focus ring on this). I do not know much, but presenting my little knowledge here.
1) Why more people are using 50 or 55mm

a)Initially when people buy or make adaptors, they want to test the adaptor first without buying the other focal length lenses.

b)Also, when you are using just one lens- this is the focal length most of the guys using

c)Also for beginner with adaptor this lens can be bought for cheap prices.

d)This is the focal length of lens which gives normal look- that is how the eye looks at it.

2) Why people are fast lens savvy

Under ideal conditions, we will not be using wider f-stops as the DOF is less when the aperture is at wider settings- Professionals say that it's better to go for 3 or 4 stops down. But on 35mm adaptors sometimes going down in f-stops might not be possible.

But since for adaptos some light loss is inevitable, people are favoring larger aperture lenses

3)Zoom lenses
I have used Nikon 28-85mm G-AF- With no aperture ring and no focus ring on it-nothing could be done really. Also zoom lenses are heavier. Other people may comment on zoom lenses. More over because of built size, zoom lenses are usually slow or with smaller apertures.

4)Wide angle lens : 24mm and 28mm: The first perceptive wide angle occurs at 28mm. 28mm covers 74 degree field of view and 24mm covers, with just 4mm difference, 85 degrees. The moment fov changes, the perspective changes and giving an illusion that dof is more for Wide angle lens. If you just consider perspective, yes, wide angle lens has more dof that telephoto lens. But if you crop the image to the same size as obtained by telephoto, the dof is same. There is a very good articel on luminouslandscape site on this idea.

5)Telephoto: some people say the notable difference occurs at 80mm focal length.

6) Why 50mm can not do the job for all shots?
For a very long time and some of the greatest photographers just used this. But 50mm today is getting out of favor. If you want to give different look to your shots than what eye sees-move away from 50mm. Take an example where you are composing trunks of 2 trees in oblique angle. The distance between 2 trees is more with 28mm lens than what is perceived by eyes. By the same token,with 85mm, the distance is smaller than what is observed by the normal eye. Ofcourse, decreasing or increasing the distance than what exactly is, has it's own implications on the picture you are taking, but the main thing is you are departing from normal look. I think, when to use wide angle and when to use telephoto depends on personal taste.

7)Finally -one great lesson I learnt: I used to think that if I have 28mm or 24 mm lens I will get great shots. True, 28mm can give you 75 degree coverage of field, but the distances between the objects in the picture are larger -there by reducing the size of the objects themselves. Added to that is sharpness lost because of the adaptor and more sharpness lost because of pro-cine mode I am using with GS400. I personally don't like the CUs with wide angle lens.

Someone please correct and add more info to this.

Thanks
Madhav Yerella.