Survey: What Focal Length Do You Use Most Often?

I have the 7-14 and i use it mostly at 7mm

On my OMD, it's 24mm because of the qualities of the 12mm lens relative to the 14. On the X-Pro and most other cameras I've owned its been a 28mm equivalent. Not cleanse call either - I live at those focal lengths.


-Ray
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Thanks, I tried editing the Equivalent List and the Lens Length tab(setting 1:1), but it reported 45 mm as 50 mm anyway. But that's ok, I like writing scripts.

When I count as "keepers" those images that I printed A3+, my most used lenses and focal lengths are the Pana 14-45 at 14 and 45, the PanaLeica Macro 45, and now the Oly 75.

I seem to fall between 24-70 a good percentage of the time, at least on my last 2 larger shoots. Sooo glad I got the 12-35 but I also shoot longer and want the 35-100. I can only wish it was 35-200, But it is what it is. A few years back I was definitely shooting longer but I think my subject matter has changed as well as the way I see.




I also have the 9-18 but don't seem to shoot that wide very often. Got it to get all in the frame when in tight spaces. I should use it more and see how much I like it.


Bill

Thanks for the ExposurePlot link. Scanned my photo collection over the last 10 years and by a huge margin the most common focal length I use is 40mm (35 mm equivalent)

From most to least, with at least 100 shots: 14, 35, 9, 300, 25, 70, 18, 40, 45, 150

Zoom lens most common FL:

FT 14-45: 14, 25, 45

FT 40-150: 40 (surprising, really didn't use this thing well)

FT 70-300: 300, 70

MFT 9-18: 9, 18

MFT 12-50: 12, 17

MFT 14-42 II: 14, 20

MFT 14-42 IIR: 14

MFT 40-150: 40, 150

I kinda knew the trends and that I like the 28mm EFL view, so it's not a surprise that 14mm dominates. I bought the Lumix 14mm because of that and it hasn't left the E-PM1 since (except when I just bring the E-M5).

This was a fun exercise, primarily to see if a Black Friday deal on a prime might suit me (it's a fight right now between the new 17/1.8 and the PL25).

It's also pretty clear that telephoto zooms are sort of useless to me, seeing as I end up most often using either end. So the 45/1.8 would therefore also be interesting (though it's hard to bite as I have so many legacy nifty-fifties) and the 75/1.8.

If only there was a prime super telephoto so I can retire the FT 70-300, which I kept along with the 35 macro when I switched to MFT.

Oh, look, I just justified that I need ALL the new primes. Well, crap. This isn't helping my selectivity at all. ;-)

For me it's 45mm, but this is only because I've become so used to seeing from that focal length's perspective since four of the five m4/3 lenses I own cover that focal length (14-45, 45-200, 45-175, 45 1.8). My eye has become trained to see at this focal length. Next most-used focal length is 175mm. Wide shots at 20mm or so are a distant third.

I think i use my camera rather differently from most of the people here. All the shots I have kept from my G5 in the 4 weeeks I have owned it








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Guy Parsons said:

Guy Parsons wrote:

Heh, heh, our zoom plots really just show that zooms are extremely useful, picking primes makes life more restrictive.

There's room for both primes and zooms but best to have the right lens on hand at the time it's needed.

Regards....... Guy

Click to expand...

When I've looked at my zoom usage, it's almost ALWAYS at the long or short end, regardless of the zoom. I rarely, if ever, use the middle of a zoom.

From the responses it seems most micro four thirds users favor short-to-medium focal lengths. Hardly anyone is living out in the 200-400mm range, so it would appear there aren't too many folks who specialize in wildlife photography. That should be no surprise. The medium tele like the 75mm gets no love either.

It would appear the median focal length is quite different than the average focal length, due to the different nature of different photographers.

Photographers who use mostly zoom lenses tend to use the two extremes of their zooms the most and rarely use the middle range. So even though they have a zoom, they're probably still zooming with their feet a bit anyway. So while it's true that one zoom takes up less room than two primes and you don't have to swap lenses, it seems to me a lot of folks could replace their zoom lens with a couple of primes for less money and better optics.

Based on this, I'm less enthusiastic about upgrading to a fast 75mm or 85mm prime than I had been. I'm going to be looking more at the 35-50mm range.

LincolnB said:

LincolnB wrote:

The medium tele like the 75mm gets no love either.

Click to expand...

I really love mine .....







FL in 35mm terms