People asking others questions about what lenses they should buy seems to me like asking someone what sort of house they think you should live in. [
all focal lengths related to 24 x
36 frame]
This is personal stuff, and should be based on the individual’s
needs and desires. It depends on emotion
and utility.
If we’re talking
commercial photography, equipment needs to be selected that permits the carrying out of the majority of work; rentals can and do cover the extreme jobs—fisheyes, super-long teles etc.
For personal hobby/recreation, whatever floats your boat is appropriate; if you like street shooting, say, and want a relatively
moderate perspective (eg the drawing of the lens doesn’t shout “
look at me, I’m an ultrawide!”), lenses between 35mm and 50mm will do the job, with a coverage differential of about 50%, meaning useful overlap.
If you find yourself backing up all the time (
beep,
beep,
beep!) then a wider lens is indicated; I have found 24mm is the widest I can use and retain “normal” perspective (if you keep the camera square on to geometric elements in the frame, and don’t have anything in particular looming up front).
Portraits? Any lens can make for effective portraits, but if the subject is to be large in the frame the lens needs to have a longer focal length than normal to keep noses and chins within reasonable limits. The longer the lens, the further away it is from the subject, and the flatter the rendering; a subject with a long hooter will benefit from a 200mm lens from 12' away!
How to break the rules, Arnold Newman-style (as I recall, this was shot on a Nikon with a 28mm lens):
Video on how and why this picture was made.
And another Newman with more “normal” perspective; this was the first Newman photograph I noticed, and I was stunned by its design. Still love it after 40+ years.
