What's the ideal focal length?

Everyone has a different personal distance bubble.

It is said that after a meeting with Prime Minister Hashimoto, President Yeltsin remarked that he couldn't quite get a sense of the right distance from Mr Hashimoto. Mr Hashimoto was known to be a high Dan Kendo practitioner and he apparently speculated that the reason might be that Kendo, a martial art fought with bamboo swords, requires a slightly greater distance from the opponent than other martial arts.

I've had a similar experience; when sparring with a Kyokushin Karate champion, he told me that he couldn't measure the distance with me. Having practised kendo myself since childhood, I suppose I must have developed my own ingrained sense of distance. As for personal distance, it probably has to do with the focal length you feel most comfortable with.

I once bought a Ricoh GR III. Even though it's practically synonymous with street photography, for some reason I just couldn't make it work for me. I couldn't get shots like the many examples you see online.

The Fujifilm X100, on the other hand, felt like a natural extension of my body; everything about it was perfect. I've owned three models in the x100 series: the s, t and v.

One day I read an article where a famous Japanese photographer mentioned that 50mm is like 35mm in Japan overseas, and that resonated with me. But there are also lenses like 40mm and 45mm. The 40mm in particular has a good reputation in Japan. Perhaps it's seen as a more "assertive" focal length than the 35mm.

Taking the above opinions into account, I chose a 45mm lens for street photography in Moscow. I felt that 45mm would be better than 50mm because I wanted to shoot from a bit further away. I used a Sony A6400 with a 30mm f3.5 macro lens (which is like a 45mm f5.25 in full frame) and it proved to be the perfect choice. It was incredibly versatile for both street and portrait photography (although it was a bit dark).

To simplify my setup, I've now switched to two A7C II bodies and an RX100M3. I sold the Zeiss 55mm f1.8 I was using and now use the Samyang 45mm f1.8. Weighing only 162g, it's the ideal choice for me as I'm not keen on heavy equipment. I still have a 35mm lens, but I'm beginning to think that the 45mm is all I need.

Now, with the release of the Leica Q3, the 43mm focal length is generating some buzz. The thinking goes that since the diagonal of a full-frame sensor is around 43mm, this focal length is very close to our natural field of view - it's a focal length that Pentax has actually been offering for years. I'm intrigued to see what kind of images this lens, only 2mm shorter than a 45mm, will produce. It may turn out to be the most intuitive focal length of all.