What lens to give what the eye sees?

The 32 mm prime on a camera such as the 10D, 20D, or either of the digital Rebel models will give you something close to the "normal" field of view with that sensor size (approximately 1/1.6 times the size of a frame of 35 mm film). It is neither wide-angle or telephoto, but is an approximation of the view that you get with the eye if you exclude your peripheral vision.

It seems that the brain/eye combination doesn't like to concentrate on things that aren't within that 40-50 degree "cone" of vision in front of you. If you see something of interest in the periphery, you will turn your eyes and/or head towards it to examine it. So yes, you can see stuff almost out to the side, but you can't study it without looking towards it. And the farther away from center, the less we can study an object's detail.

As for the lens - no rule says that you have to get such a lens, but it is useful to have a relatively fast (aperture-wise, say 2.0 or faster) lens in the 28 to 35 mm range for times when you want to shoot low-light. Yes, you can go wider, or longer, but if you're only going to buy one fast lens, it makes sense to have it in a "middle of the road" position.

Not neccesarily. If you print it big and view from up close, it will appear very normal.

Probably could have worded it better - I was speaking of peripheral vision in that statement, which indeed extends a bit shy of 180 degrees from side to side, but not from top to bottom. It's not very good vision, but it is very useful. I don't think there's enough detail there to matter much in an image viewed very closely. You'll generally turn your attention to things in those peripheral areas to see any detail.

Actually the "normal" focal length for 35mm film is about 43mm. Since a little of the the frame gets cropped in a slide mount or negative carrier I use a 35mm focal length as normal. With a 1.6 crop that translates into 22mm, which means that a 10-22 or 12-24 mm zoom is really only a moderate wide to normal zoom for me.

Probably a fisheye by late this evening.

Graham

The lens that comes closest to what MY naked eyes see would be the ones they use on the single-use 35mm cameras.

Wide angle, not very sharp, and no ability to focus.

Curtis N wrote:
The lens that comes closest to what MY naked eyes see would be the ones they use on the single-use 35mm cameras.

Wide angle, not very sharp, and no ability to focus.

Hey Curtis, this sounds a bit like 'blind date' I'll pick number 3!

Graham

>>like dante stated, a 32mm lens would be considered a normal lens on the XT. since canon doesn't make a 32mm lens, your choices are either the 28mm or the 35mm.<<

or you can get the new sigma 30 f1.4.

ed rader