28mm vs 35mm

Ehouse said:

Are these numbers arbitrary based on simply lens manufacturers tradition of these focal lengths

Click to expand...

Yup. "Mood" strikes me as an odd criteria. Mood is more likely to be the result of composition and lighting. A 28mm will have mild distortion in the outer portions of the frame. So, for filming you will probably want to keep the 28 locked down and not pan or dolly much. A 35 would not be quite so sensitive to those things.

Kelly Cook

My two cents on this. Angle of view does influence mood. It correlates to the camera position relative to your subject, scene elements.

As such, 35mm is pretty much standard for film making, as it can be used to gain intimacy into the scene without compressing perspective, while keeping a relaxing and natural look relative to our sight focus tone.

28 You might want to use to artificially increase the stature of a subject (think a kid looking up at the comparatively huge building, his first day in an oppressive school, think the murderer above the victim, ready to strike, think the exit while running out of a collapsing mine....) or offer a better overview from top or side when you want to set context or relationships between characters and environment.

Likewise, longer lengths compress and are more claustrophobic.

LATER EDIT:

For instance, you might have a scene consisting of multiple cuts that start wide angle (24-28mm), introducing the setting and a thief entering a dark room. Camera plays a bit with angles as the thief searches through stuff and moves through the environment. Some tighter pieces and close-ups follow at 35mm, closing in the relation between the thief and objects he's searching through. As the tension rises, you start using 40mm, then 60mm macro and go into details, just his hands on stuff. During a slow hand move of examination (on which you cut before its finish), you slam a 90-105/130mm portrait view of the character as he is suddenly startled by the: phone/doorbell ringing, door unlocking/being slammed with the object of choice far off, back in the frame (like the character being at the other end of a long corridor). The object is defocused in favor of the character, but you very slightly desaturate in post everything except for the character and door / phone (very very slightly so that it's not immediately noticeable).

This is a possible example of gradually using different angles of view and compress the view as tension increases.

Cheers.

Ehouse said:

I'm working in film and I'm trying to nail down when to use 28mm versus a 35mm, beyond simply, "I want to see more".

Ang Lee comes to mind when I ask this, as I read that he was very specific in his shots. The simple 7mm change between the two was very important to him in getting the right mood/feel of the shot when there were actors on the screen.

What are the differences in the two? What change of mood happens when we swap between the two? When do I use which focal length?

It could be just a relative question as a longer focal length would isolate the subject slightly more and thus the change in focal length could happen during a conversation as the subject's situation or perspective is changed if the first shots of the conversation were done in 28mm and as it progressed to 35mm.But why start in 28mm and go to 35mm? Why not 30mm and 37mm? Are these numbers arbitrary based on simply lens manufacturers tradition of these focal lengths or were they chosen specifically because of the moods they produce in the viewer?

Click to expand...

I greatly prefer 28 mm. In fact, as I shoot nikon, the Nikon 28 mm 1.8G is on my camera most of the time. It is *just* wide enough for you to start to get that wide-angle effect, but not so much that there is distortion. And its still flexible enough to get close up shots without distorting facial features. In my opinion, the 35mm is too similar to 50mm. You certainly have more room to shoot with, but if you were to shoot with a 35mm and take a few steps forward to mimic a 50mm, you just don't see enough of a difference in my opinion. So in that regard, it's more of a "boring" normal lens (though certainly better than a 50mm, but that's a different topic).

Again, just my two cents.

Really comes down to personal preference, and also what you already own. I have a 28mm and a 50mm. If tomorrow 28mm ceased to exist, I would purchase a 35mm.

I believe the question was more about reasons outside technicalities. You can have 15 mm lenses with no lens distortion, just perspective distortion, but that's kind of irrelevant since the artsy or craftsy side is more about why use that angle or perspective from everything BUT technical reasons.

I think this is a case of artistic preference.

Last year I did a photo shoot of a couple in a gazebo. Normally for a full length portrait I will use 50mm or 85mm... but those lenses didn't look right. 28mm was a no go. But the 35mm had just the right combination of foreground, subject, background, and blur.

The best thing is not to fence yourself into accepted standards, but shoot whatever translates to the vision in your mind's eye. One of my favorite portraits was done with a 20mm lens.

I totally dig wide portraits myself. 35mm really is the jack of all trades IMO. Not boring at all. Depth, inclusion, everything. Hell a friend photographer did some shots under 20mm.

Ehouse said:

I'm working in film and I'm trying to nail down when to use 28mm versus a 35mm, beyond simply, "I want to see more".

Ang Lee comes to mind when I ask this, as I read that he was very specific in his shots. The simple 7mm change between the two was very important to him in getting the right mood/feel of the shot when there were actors on the screen.

What are the differences in the two? What change of mood happens when we swap between the two? When do I use which focal length?

It could be just a relative question as a longer focal length would isolate the subject slightly more and thus the change in focal length could happen during a conversation as the subject's situation or perspective is changed if the first shots of the conversation were done in 28mm and as it progressed to 35mm.But why start in 28mm and go to 35mm? Why not 30mm and 37mm? Are these numbers arbitrary based on simply lens manufacturers tradition of these focal lengths or were they chosen specifically because of the moods they produce in the viewer?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure 7mm will change a photo's "mood" (whatever that is!) but the wider primes are relatively cheap (Canon 28, Sigma 30, etc) so get a few and see what works best for you

Or just slap on a kit zoom, as it covers all of those focal lengths.

Kelly