FujiLove
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 3,923
- Edit My Images
- No
I bought a 40mm Nokton lens to use on my Leica, rather than the usual 35mm or 50mm choices, and here's why: most of my photos are destined to end up printed on 8x10 or 12x16 paper, and the 50mm horizontal frame lines on Leica bodies give an accurate representation of the width of the final image when printed. To see what I mean, first have a look at the bottom image. This shows a negative taken with a Nokton 40mm lens. I've marked the maximum printable areas for the two common paper sizes. Now look at the top image. You can see that the 50mm frame lines of an M3 match the horizontal width of the print. The whole viewfinder height is roughly the same as the print's vertical size.
Of course, this assumes you are looking to print the final image rather than scan the whole negative. It also assumes you want to print almost to the edge of the of paper, as I do. Adding very large borders brings the printed image size closer to the shape of the 35mm negative. But if you want to avoid the annoyance of having to crop out important details at the edges of the frame, consider giving the 40mm a go.
Of course, this assumes you are looking to print the final image rather than scan the whole negative. It also assumes you want to print almost to the edge of the of paper, as I do. Adding very large borders brings the printed image size closer to the shape of the 35mm negative. But if you want to avoid the annoyance of having to crop out important details at the edges of the frame, consider giving the 40mm a go.