I read a comment on my YouTube channel the other day:

“I hate a 50mm focal length.”

It made me smile.

It’s funny how people can hate a specific focal length and never really adapt to it. As if the lens itself is the problem. As if 50mm has committed some unforgivable crime against photography. But I know that’s not what this is about. There are just some lenses that don’t fit what we see and want to express.

Personally, I work mainly with 50mm and 35mm in both my daily work and my street photography.

Those two focal lengths are where I feel most at home. They are the lenses I trust, the ones I understand, and the ones that seem to understand me back.

Anything from 85mm to 300mm only comes out when I absolutely need it — for sports, for birds, for situations where there simply is no other practical option. And that is the interesting part: I would never use those focal lengths if I didn’t have to.

That says something.

50mm Summilux in Berlin.

From long to short lenses

When I was younger, I had a very different idea of what I wanted from photography. Like many others, I was fascinated by the look of longer focal lengths. A 90mm or 100mm lens felt seductive. It promised that beautiful separation, that compressed perspective, that creamy blur in the background. It felt like “serious” photography. Like the subject would rise out of the frame with elegance while the world around it melted away.

And for a while, that was satisfying.

But later I found out something important: for me, it was also absolutely boring.

That kind of isolation, when overused, can become visually empty. Yes, the face stands out. Yes, the background disappears. Yes, the image becomes “clean.”

But once everything around the person is blurred into irrelevance, something else disappears too: context, atmosphere, relationship, tension, narrative.

And I don’t want to lose that.

50mm in Berlin.

It’s about context

I love to see where people are. I love the environment. I love the details around them, the clues, the visual noise, the small pieces of reality that tell you something beyond the face itself. That is why I ended up with 50mm — and why 35mm has grown on me more and more lately. These focal lengths allow me to photograph people as part of a world, not cut out from it.

To me, that makes an image richer.

A portrait does not become more interesting simply because the background is blurred into oblivion. I still prefer blurred backgrounds but as included backgrounds. I include the environment, dimm it with shallow depth of field, getting the best of both worlds.

Sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes what makes a person compelling is exactly where they are standing, what is behind them, what the frame allows us to wonder about. A photograph opens up when it gives us room to interpret. It breathes when the subject is connected to something outside themselves.

That is what I want from photography.

Of course, this is completely personal. It is biased. It is based on what I like, what I feel, and what keeps me interested in making pictures. I have no proof. No data. No universal rule. I am not trying to declare one focal length right and another wrong.

This is simply my way of seeing.

And in that sense, I could almost say that I hate everything that is not 35mm or 50mm — not because those other focal lengths are bad, but because they do not fit the stories I want to tell.

I know plenty of photographers love longer lenses. And that’s fair. Everyone has their own visual language. But for me, I would never spend money chasing those focal lengths for personal work. I would put that money into a really good 35mm or a really good 50mm every single time, because that is where my satisfaction lives. That is where my photographic instinct feels most alive.

35 mm 

The 35mm and 50mm clichés

The interesting thing is that even within those two focal lengths — 35mm and 50mm — we often fall into clichés.

It is commonly said that 35mm includes more context, while 50mm narrows things down and gives stronger focus to people. There is truth in that, of course. But I also think the distinction is often exaggerated.

Because focal length is only part of the story.

What really matters is how close or far away you are. Where you place yourself. How you build the frame. What you decide to include, and what you decide to leave out. A 35mm lens can be used in a way that feels intimate and concentrated. A 50mm lens can still hold plenty of environment and context if you step back and compose with intention.

In other words: lenses do not make pictures on their own. Distance does. Framing does. Presence does. Vision does.

And that brings me to a little challenge.

I’ve put together four images. Two of them were shot with a 35mm lens, and two were shot with a 50mm lens.

35mm

Can you tell which is which?

That question is more interesting to me than another endless debate about what focal length is “better.” Because once you start looking closely, the differences are not always as obvious as people think. Sometimes we talk about 35mm and 50mm as if they live in entirely different worlds, when in reality they are close neighbours. And with the right distance, the right subject, and the right intent, they can overlap more than we admit.

So maybe the point is not whether a focal length is lovable or hateful.

Maybe the point is whether it fits the way you see.

For me, 35mm and 50mm do exactly that. They give me enough context, enough intimacy, enough flexibility, and enough honesty. They let me stay close to life without flattening it into a face floating in blur. They help me describe not just a person, but a person in a place, in a moment, in a world.

And that is enough for me.

So when someone writes, “I hate 50mm,” I understand the feeling — but I also wonder whether they really hate the focal length, or whether they just haven’t found a way to make it their own.

Maybe every lens has to be met halfway.

So, what do you think? Which two are 35mm, and which two are 50mm?

Write in the comments section below which pictures you think are taken with a 35mm, and which are with the 50mm (there are two of each).

In one of the next posts I will tell you the result.