One focal length for the rest of your life?

Spotted Cow wrote:

Al, I'm going to guess a 50mm for you. Am I right?

Am I that transparent??

As for me, at least right now for the past year or two, it's the 35mm. Something about that focal length really speaks to me and I have the most fun taking photos with it. I just shot a small event this past weekend and even though I had the 24-70mm lens, I kept going back to my 35mm prime lens.

I know many people who feel the same - 35mm seems to match their perception of things around them. I think I 'see longer'! If I'm wanting to travel light with a camera, I sometimes take my x100 and I have a lot of fun with its fixed 35mm (equiv) lens, but often it throws background elements too far away for my liking, and I'd definitely have chosen a 50mm model instead if I'd had the choice.

I think for one reason or another, some photographers enjoy viewing photos taken with a specific focal length. My "love" for the 35mm focal length started when I saw some random guys' collection of photos (I believe they were all black and white) that was done with a 35mm lens on his website and I thought ithay they were done very well and for some reason, as I wrote before, it really spoke to me as a photographer. Of course there are countless number of great photos taken with every other focal length I can imagine, but for some reason 35mm does it for me. So when I look around me, I "see" the world with a 35mm focal length when I'm constantly looking for interesting opportunities to photograph and I'm starting to be able to see the photograph that my camera will take before I even put my camera up to my face.

Of course there are times when I put the camera up to my face and realize that a slightly different focal length would work better. That's why the Sigma 18-35mm lens was perfect for me on my 7D. I used it at 22mm focal length (35mm equivalent) most of the time I still had the option to switch to a 31mm equivalent for example (50mm equivalent) when those opportunities would come about. Yes, I also used it at those i between focal lengths as well but vast majority of my shots were at 22mm focal length - 35mm equivalent.