Fuji X-mount Pancake 41mm

I agree with you, Tony. I can't tell you how many times I've read posts pontificating on the sanctity of the standard 50mm lens... even on APS-C!

40mm FOV is much more normal, and 43mm would be the diagonal of 35mm... it just so happens that Pentax has the 43/1.9 Ltd - even in Leica mount.
 
Google is my friend...

Because that's what Oskar Barnack had at hand: Beginners Questions Forum: Digital Photography Review

The 35mm still image format was invented by Oskar Barnack—the guy who designed the first Leica. How did he do it? Well, he took the already-existing 35mm motion picture film, doubled the frame (so that one 35mm stills frame = two adjacent 35mm motion frames), and stuck a 50mm lens in front of it because, well, that was the closest he could get to the frame diagonal (43mm) using lenses that were already being made.

A 45mm lens is closer to a true "normal" lens than 50mm. However, the 50mm focal length has stuck around since them for a variety of reasons:

Inertia. Camera companies aren't adventurous; they tend to keep building what has sold in the past.

Compatibility with older equipment. Nearly all rangefinder cameras have framelines for 50mm; nearly all rangefinder normal lenses made are also 50mm. If you make a rangefinder camera or lens that departs from this, it will not be a great match to people's older equipment.

SLR lenses need to leave clearance for the mirror, which means that 35mm SLR systems had flange focal distances from around 42mm to 48mm. This makes it easier to build large-aperture 50mm lenses than 45mm lenses. (The fastest 45mm SLR lenses I'm aware of are about f/2; the fastest 50mm SLR lenses are f/1.0.)
 
i still like 35. you can always crop to get closer pov, but you cant go wider than lens allows!

tbh, give me one lens i,ll take a 35. imo a full kit is a fast 35 plus something in the 75-100 range (FF fov of course). game over.
 
I find this interesting & informative

My first camera was a Halina Paulette Electric fixed 45mm f2.8 lens & I always prefered the little extra width it gave me especially with buildings & interiors
sample shots floating around here somewhere of New York, Montreal, Grand Canyon

I like panoramas stitched but ultra wide lens is near useless because of the convergence even 30mm can be problematic but it seems that a 40 - 45 would be near perfect
 
well i dont know about 'useless'...certainly there are many 28's that have no noticeable distortion; same for 24-25's; and the high level 21 elmarits and biogons have very little, esp on crop factor cams. so its really a matter of taste. i personally agree, id rather have a little wider everyday lens, esp when i have ability to take panos with it, than either a lot wider or too close.
 
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