When is 50mm NOT 50mm?

edwardaneal wrote:

no its not a silly question at all and to be honest I cant believe how this thread has gone this long without you getting a straight answer.

so here it is - a Sony e-mount 50mm lens and a range finder legacy 50mm lens and a modern nikon 50mm lens will all have exactly the same field of view when mounted on your NEX camera.

Sony does not compensate for the crop factor in the focal length markings on their lenses. and all of these 50mm lenses will have a field of view roughly the same as a 75mm lens would have on a full frame 35mm camera.

as to perspective it has nothing to do with focal length - perspective is changed by changing subject distance - you can even test this with your finger - hold your hand out at arms length with a finger sticking up and look how close it looks to the things that are behind it - now move your finger closer to your eye - and notice how the distance between your finger and the things behind it seems to get so much greater

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NEX-7 & Sigma 30mm f/2.8
NEX-5 & 18-55 OSS
And a spare black 18-55