Great Little Lens

yardcoyote wrote:

Thank you for the review. The voice of experience is so useful.

I have been considering the 50mm 'cron myself - juggling it against a secondhand 56mm f/1.2 and the maybe-upcoming Tokina 56mm as a general purpose lens for the potential X-T2. I much prefer the longer focal length, but "50mm on crop" is a thing in its own right, and I don't hate it.

There is some history here with the 75 mm (equivalent). It's a range finder thing. The first 75 was released by Leica in 1932 and Leica has been refining this focal length ever since. It is somewhat a hybrid focal length. It is a "long normal" or short telephoto. For some reason it never caught on in the SLR wold.

Spending years with a Leica - the 75 really grew on me and I find it quite versatile. It works well as a street lens if you have the room.  It can work as a portrait lens in a pinch.

People who cut their teeth in the SLR world tend not to have any experience with this focal length and often berate it.  But it can be very useful.  The 56 (85 equiv) is a true portrait lens.  For a pure portrait lens I prefer the 100 to 105 as I find the 85 a bit short.  However, Fuji does not have an offering of a 70 mm prime.

I much prefer my 50 to my 56 for street and general knock around.  The 50 and the XPro are a wonderful team.  For a formal portrait I'd go with the 56 as it has a little smoother rendering of the out of focus areas ( but not by a lot) to the 50. If I didn't have my 56 with me I have no hesitation using the 50 for a portrait.