Originally posted by Pål Jensen Found some interesting sales percentage by focal length in a photo magazine from 1979. This is from japanese manufacturers.
Shorter than 25mm: 0.9% (I'll bet 90% of those are 24mm)
28mm: 8.5%
30-35mm: 3.6%
50-55mm: 67% (!)
80-105mm: 1.7%
120-135mm: 5.6%
Longer than 150mm: 5.6%
Tele zoom: 5.5%
Wide-angle zoom: 3.7%
Of course nowadays people have most of this covered by zooms. Zooms have probably more than 90% of the marked. Anyway, I think this can tell us what focal length people actually use; also today.
Vintage super wide angles are very rare cause there weren't many sold. Short telephotos is also not that common. It also explain the vast numbers of vintage 50mm lenses out there
The stats show people actually used at time but one must understand why:
- 50mm lenses where bundled in the kit... And I think that back in time as of today a good share of people never buy a lens outside a kit. i read somewhere that it is more than 50% of DSLR buyers today.
- 50mm lenses are the cheapest offering with a wide apperture.
- wide angle larger than 28mm where very expensive for the few available.
You got that 50mm bundled in the kit anyway for a very low price. If you addonly 1-2 prime(s), each one adding a steady sum, you'd want them to give quite different field of view. You'd take 28-50-135 rather than 35-50-85.
My father had exactly that in fact: M28 f/2.8, M50 f/1.7 and M135 f/2.5... And he got some 2X TC so he could do 100mm and 270mm...
Last edited by Nicolas06; 07-23-2016 at 11:11 PM.