Not Normal

Photography

I do not understand why Nikon do not make a 33.3mm lens.

Since the popularity of three-fourths sensors on semi-pro DSLRs, you would have thought someone would make a ’normal’ lens for that sensor size, but no …… the closest I could find is the 30mm lens by Sigma, which I have and like very much (but it is not quite normal).

I dunno, maybe I an being getting overly nerdy here …… but all the advice about starting SLR photography says, don’t use a zoom, use a normal lens first, learn to move not zoom, learn what that lens can do before moving on.

My understanding is that it is called ’normal’ as it has the same perspective as human vision, making it appear very natural.

A normal lens on a full-size sensor or film camera is 50mm. You get many lovely, high maximum aperture, cheap lenses of that size. A normal lens on my Nikon D80, which has a sensor-size ratio of 1.5 would be 50/1.5 = 33.3mm, and no one seems to make one.

Zoom lenses are very convenient, I have one myself, I take it when I do not know what I am going to be photographing. Of course you could adjust the right zoom lens to be at 33mm, but you probably would not get such good results. Zoom lenses are always compromised in some way ……. at least ones in my price bracket. For instance the high aperture range of my 30mm Sigma (F1.4 to F16) opens creative low light possibilities that my zoom (F3.5/F5.6 to F22) could not.

So, do you have any suggestions? Am I just being too nerdy about this?