I think it's a matter of economics.....the most popular lens is 50mm (or so)
and is physically a size that doesn't require a lot of materials.....add to
that the huge quantities that are normally sold (one 50mm/1.8 for each body
give or take some) and they become inexpensive to produce. The 50mm/1.2 or
1.4 is not as big a seller and cost of manufacture is higher. The demand for
a big lens (300mm or longer) at very high speed (2.8 or faster) is pretty
small compared to production costs (for the average shooter it's much
cheaper to go with faster film and a medium speed lens). As mentioned on the
list before, the biggest bargain around is a used late model 50mm/1.8....an
awesome lens for not much money.
Bruce Kolber
St. Petersburg, FL 33715
USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel J. Mitchell" <DanielMitchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 12:08 PM
Subject: RE: [OM] Why is the 50mm the brightest lens?
> But I'm still not sure why it is that the 50mm lens is the fastest -- is
it
> just that there's not the demand for a $100,000 300mm f1.2 lens? Is it
just
> the case that 50mm lenses happen to match up to 35mm film in a
particularly
> handy way to allow making fast lenses at that size without it being too
> expensive?
>
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