Saturday, 14 February 2015

Time to loose the focal length reference for lenses?

If you have read my previous post you will know that  the Leica M8 and its lenses have gone and I've replaced them with a Fuji X1Pro with the 14mm and 18 - 55mm Fuji lenses. Another APS sensor camera. 

Not all APS are the same, the M8 is APS-H the largest of the APS sensors, the Fuji is APS-C the most common of the APS sensors. What this all meant was that when choosing the lenses to accompany the Fuji X1 Pro I had to work out the 35mm equivalents so I had a reference as to what I wanted. 

This got me thinking, wouldn't it be easier of lenses were referred to by their Angle of View (AOV)? that way you would know what you were getting and would not have to do some mental maths to work it out from the crop factor and focal length. 

For instance, a 14mm on APS-C has a 90degree AOV as does a 21mm on 35mm FF sensors, so if the lens was labelled Fujinon 90 degree AOV (14mm) I'd know instantly it was a wide angle. The 18 - 55 on APS-C has a AOV of 80 - 29 degrees equivalent in 35mm to 26 - 80mm  so I know its a wedding shooter special walk about lens.

I think it would be much easier all round, let me know what you think?

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