Are you Wide Angle? Normal? Tele?

[djacobox372]

I own two lenses for 4x5, a 75mm wide angle, and a 150mm normal. The 75mm is used around 70% of the time.

[2F/2F]

It's very interesting. With small format, I find the normal lens to be by far my most-used lens. However, I rarely use a normal lens with large format. I either go longer or wider most of the time. With medium format, I tend to use telephotos very often.

[papagene]

I seem to gravitate towards normal lenses no matter the format. But on a trip to the Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park this summer I used the wide angle for about 3/4s of the shots - Fuji GSW 690 III.

Back in my early photo days I had a 35 - 70mm f2.8 zoom on my ME Super and I found myself setting it around the 50mm position for the vast majority of shots. So I stopped using the zoom and put the 50mm f1.7 back on the camera. That's when I realized that I favor normal lenses.

[Erik L]

I tend to shoot with the longer focal lengths from 4x5 through 11x14. I have a hard time making the wide angle view work for me. It may look good on the ground glass in wide view, but when I make a print in my normal size (11x14 contact or enlarged 11x14 from 4x5) all the little details are so small in the background of the print that I always wish I had used a longer lens to capitalize on detail potential of large piece of film. If I were making very large prints often, than those details would show up with a wide view and I might have a different opinion.
regards
Erik

[Vaughn]

Majority of work done with normal lenses. The 300mm for 8x10 is the only lens I own that has a decent shutter, so it sees a lot of use as it can be easier to use if I happen to be out in the sun. 4x5 -- 150mm, 5x7 -- 210mm, 8x10 -- 300mm. The 19" is nice on the 7x17.

Will the very wide angle of cell phone cameras change the way people expect photos to look like?

[Ian Grant]

With 5"x4" 75% roughly a normal lens (135-150mm), 24.9% wide angle (90mm & occasional 65mm) and less than 0.1% longer lenses (210mm and extremely rarely 300mm).

Much the same with my 10x8, mostly my 12" Dagor, some with my 165mm Super Angulon.

Ian

[nick mulder]

never thought about it

but calculating film diagonal like you mentioned - I'm tele for ULF

Wide in MF

Normal in 35mm

[Usagi]

Mostly within "normal", for 4x5 I use both 150mm and 210mm a lot. 300mm and 450mm sometimes. Occasionally 90mm and 75mm.
The newcomers are 65mm and 135mm which I am learning. Don't know where it ends. Perhaps 135mm will see a lot of use.

8x10, 300mm and 450.

[Drew B.]

Wide and wider if I feel a change is needed

[JDP]

Definitely lean toward wide-angle for landscape (mostly 45mm and 65mm lens' for 2x3). For people it's more evenly balanced wide/normal/tele.