Good question Chuck. I can answer from my own perspective and only my own
perspective.
My "normal" focal length is 35mm. It is the basis of the one-body-length
working distance even shoot lens. I can get in close enough to the subject,
but not so close as to be in their face. A 50mm lens has me backing up far
enough that invariably I get somebody cutting in front of me to the
subject. Techically speaking, the 42mm-ish focal length is considered
"normal" for the 24x36mm frame, but that's a mathematical thing, not
necessarily a usage thing. I've had several cameras that worked at that
focal length and I found them to be OK, but never quite ideal. Wierd.
My "extreme" wide angle is 24mm. Somewhere between 21 and 24 seems to be
the sweet spot there. Biggest problem with 24mm is that you start to induce
distortion into the image and it looks like a wide-angle shot.
The advantage of 28mm is that it is the widest lens you can use that
doesn't produce wide-angle images. Lenses of 28 to 35mm are wider than
"normal" but maintain the natural look and subject to background
relationship. If I could have just one wide-angle F2 lens for the OM
system, it would probably be either the 28mm or the 35mm with a slight nod
to the 28mm. (It's also sharper by a country mile).
50mm is a wierd beast to me. There are days I like it, but it formats the
image like a "long normal". It's the longest "normal" lens I'd ever use.
Between 50mm and 80mm there seems to be a no man's land. I really dislike
70mm. It's a neither fish nor fowl focal length. It's never long enough.
they only thing I can say nice about it is that it's a doubling of the 35mm
focal length, but even then it just doesn't provide enough of a reach to be
usable. At 80mm, the lens becomes usable again. There is another sweet spot
between 80 and 105mm.
135mm is smack dab in the middle of 100 and 200mm focal lengths. It seems
to work better if your short tele is at 80-85mm.
So, the standard doubling sequence of 24, 50, 100, 200 can have an
alternative of 21, 35, 85, 135. The only time I see 70mm ever being useful
is when all other focal lengths have been accidently left at home. The
35-70mm zooms just don't quite do it for me. I had one for many years and
found that it was useful for shooting formals at a wedding because it gave
me some positional flexibility when working the "normal" focal length, but
if I wanted to go to the 70mm end, I almost always switched off to the
100/2.8 lens.
I don't even know if my 35-80 even works at 70mm. Never tried it.
AG
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