Thread: Why are there no 50mm fixed focal length serious compacts?

I'm another that grew up on 50mm primes and find a 35 mm prime less than ideal.
For people shots 35mm takes me too close and fails to isolate the subject from the background as much as I'd wish
The new Sigma DP3 with its 75mm equivalent prime has caught my eye..now that's a focal length I do use a lot.
It isolates detail in buildings and landscapes and makes for great people shots...if only Fuji could bring out a tele converter for the X100.

I also use the 75mm equiv, a lot. 50 and 75 are my prime choices right now, with 70-210 on E-p2 (140-420), for long stuff.

I'd be in ther market for one. I tried an X100 and couldn't live with it, I hated the EFL immediately. OTOH I love shooting a NEX body with the SEL35 or the X-E with the 35/1.4. The 50mm EFL is the widest I want to go. In fact I guess my perfect cam would be a 35-50 (50-75 EFL) F2.0 with APS-C sensor in a X10 body. Holy crap how sweet that'd be !!

Maybe because I became a full time glasses wearer at the age of 12 (yes, and suffered the infantile "four eyes" appellation) and my "in focus" vision was thus concentrated to a narrower frame, the longer lenses as normal work well for me -- 50mm - 70mm EFL is just about right, and I use my old Zuiko OM 35 a lot on my E-M5.

35mm seems wide to me, but I do enjoy using an old film rangefinder, the XA, with a fixed 35mm lens, and it challenges me to think a little beyond the limits that my spectacles have imposed for the last 50 years. But if I had to choose one focal it would be 50mm, which does seem to me "normal". Fortunately I don't have to choose juse one, and I do hope to get the X100, as I have used 35mm and 40mm fixed lens cameras productively and enjoyed using them.

As I said earlier, most of the the fixed lens 35mm cameras I know of (and I grant that I am not a walking encyclopedia of vintage cameras), with the exception of some Yashicas, had a wider angle of view.

I'm one of those who likes the 50mm, I also like 55mm, in fact I think I like it a little better. I had an FA43mm Ltd and ended up selling it, in spite of its much-lauded pixie dust, because I just couldn't seem to do anything with it, that I actually liked. I sometimes wonder if my preference for 50 comes from starting SLR on a fully manual Minolta, which, of course, came with the Rokkor 50mm f/1.4, and that is all I used for *years*. I suppose its kind of ingrained in some way, if it ain't 50 (or thereabouts) it just ain't right. :)