853 - How Was It For You?



24mm, on a Nikon D300 that’s an effective focal length of 36mm, which is about 35mm, and that’s one of the classic focal lengths for a moderate wide-angle. Everybody and their parents have used that from the beginning of time, but so far I had it only on the 18-200 zoom.

Sure, I must have used it a thousand times and I’ll check that, but you only really learn to see in a focal length when you use it with a prime.

So, how does it work? I have no big number of images to show, but that’s more because I had neither time for shooting nor later for processing.

This lens fits like the proverbial glove. I don’t know, there’s something about it that makes it incredibly versatile. It’s wider than normal, but definitely not wide enough to produce much distortion. It feels … natural. I like that. And it’s small. I like that too.

To answer Thomas’ question: it’s actually two bags of lenses, one for Vienna, mostly with primes, one for Carinthia with the three zooms and the current “prime of choice”. Additionally, the Sigma 150/2.8 and the Nikon 50/1.8 are permanently in Carinthia now.

So, how was it for you when you used your 24mm (or most likely 35mm on film) for the first time? Do you still like it? Do you still use it? Is it boring?

The Song of the Day is “How Was It For You?” from James’ 1990 album “Gold Mother”. See a video of them as young boys on YouTube.


There are 2 comments

Thomas   (2009-02-14)

Ok..two bags. I should have guessed...🙂

I still like using those moderate wide-angle lenses. Around 80% of my photos are shot with my 17-55/2.8 zoom, which would be 27-90mm on a full frame camera.

But I'm still dreaming of a prime at around 20mm with a max aperture of 1.8 or something like that. But that would need to be a 12mm prime. Haven't seen that one with such a wide aperture for my Canon.

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Andreas   (2009-02-15)

Hmm ... you're asking for something that you don't want to carry. My Sigma 20/1.8 (effective 30mm) already has an 82mm filter thread. I guess it's cheaper going full frame and using the Sigma 🙂

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