Single Focal Length Fixed Lens Cameras; Are They For You?

Clockwise from top left:  Fujifilm X100VI, Ricoh GRIIIx, Leica Q3. Not to scale. (click to enlarge)

Single focal length, fixed lens digital cameras have become very popular over the past few years.  I find the idea of a single focal length, fixed lens camera to be a very attractive concept to me.  I like the idea of walking around, in a casual sort of way, with one of these cameras in tow, photographing anything and everything that strikes my fancy.  No carrying a bag or backpack with three to five lenses and everything that goes with it, just a non-interchangeable lens camera with a prime lens.  I want one.  

My desire for one of these cameras may harken all the way back to 1971-74 when my first serious camera consisted of a fixed lens Minolta Hi-Matic 7 with a 45mm f/1.8 lens.  I then sold all of my stereo music gear to buy a 35mm Minolta SRT-101 and a 50mm f/1.7 lens (I still have both cameras!).  I couldn’t afford a second lens so, in effect, it was a surrogate fixed lens, single focal length camera for at least two years.

Because of that beginning of my photographic journey, I believe, I’ve had recurring thoughts about these cameras a lot over the past year or more and have almost pulled the proverbial trigger and bought one.  But I haven't.  Realistically, however, I have to ask myself, for the kinds of photography I practice would one of these cameras actually work for me?

There are now several high quality single focal length, fixed lens cameras on the market and they seem to be selling extremely well.  Sony kind of blazed the way with this genre of camera by making an extremely high quality full frame RX1r in 2014.  The 35mm lens was manufactured specifically to match this particular sensor.  They later made an RX1rII.  I don't think either sold well at the time as they were quite expensive.  As is Sony's seemingly habit, they were ahead of the rest of the industry as well as the customer base. 

That said, jump to today.  Just try to find and buy a Fujifilm X100VI, a Ricoh GRIII or GRIIIx, a Leica Q3 or the new Q3 43 at a reasonable price.  If you can find one, it is usually priced well above the manufacturer’s set retail price, or in the case of the Leica cameras, way above what I would spend on a camera of any type.  But the idea that you just can’t easily find one of these cameras says a lot about their popularity.

The cameras I have mentioned here, and there might be more, are all capable of making very high quality images.  No doubt about that.  They are well made and the lenses come in wide/normal to wide angle focal lengths and are excellent.  But to me, the cameras seem a bit limiting.  They seem to function best with street photography and other similar types of like photographic genres.

I’ve followed several photographers on YouTube who either use one of these cameras or an interchangeable lens camera but only use a single prime lens.  What I find they all have in common is that their photos all look alike in the sense of perspective—a somewhat normal one.  Looking at each photographer’s work, the images are all similar in style.  No really wide angle ‘pull you into the frame with strong leading lines’ and no ‘compressed depth perspective’ due to never using telephoto lenses.  I won’t say their work has become boring, but I’m losing interest as everything kind of looks the same.  The world and all that is out there to photograph is far from being the same and most of it deserves more than a moderate-wide-angle-to-normal perspective.

Don’t misunderstand my point of view.  There are lots of excellent images with a normal perspective.  I would venture to guess that most of my "keeper" images are made between the focal lengths of 24mm and 70mm (full frame reference).  For those images, the normal perspective works.  But there are many more instances when the normal perspective is just wrong for the composition.  It doesn’t work.

One upside of these cameras that many may not consider is how having a single focal length forces you to see.  With only a single focal length you start to see in only that field of view and consider subjects that only fit that field of view in the sense that if you only have a hammer, everything starts to look like nails.  Forcing one to see using only one focal length is an educational and creative exercise that will cause you to hone your photographic vision differently than having many focal lengths from which to choose.  In other words, you start to view the world differently.

For me, as much as I’ve toyed with buying one of these cameras, I just don’t think one would work for the types of photography I continue to practice.  The single focal length lens selection, even considering the ‘screw-in’ auxiliary lenses available for some of them to alter the focal length or the ability to crop heavily as the Leica cameras 60mp sensors allow, still won’t meet my needs.

On a recent road trip, I found myself using focal lengths from 16mm to 200mm (full frame equivalent) and many focal lengths in between.  Trying to use a fixed focal length camera would cause me to have perform all kinds of gyrations and photographic tricks (really techniques), either in the field or during the editing process when at my computer, to achieve creating the images I would want to create.  I can’t understand why I would put myself through that and create a lot of unnecessary work just for the ‘good feeling’ about carrying around one of these cameras.

For example, on this recent road trip I just mentioned to Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, Kentucky and West Virginia, for the wide angle photos, I would have had to create composite images of any scene wider than the fixed focal length of one of theses cameras.  Yes, I can turn my camera vertically, handhold it and then make several overlapping exposures then composite the files to achieve the wider angles needed, but to do it properly with the best technique, the camera needs to be on a tripod centered at the lens’ nodal point and then the exposures could be properly made.  But why do that if you don’t have to?

Another example is a scene that requires a telephoto lens.  Yes, I could use a Leica Q3 43 and set the in-camera cropping for 150mm but I end up with a 5mp file!  I would have to go into Topaz Photo AI, Gigapixel AI or Photoshop to upscale the file to a decent size—double the size in both linear dimensions and still only get a 20mp file..  But what if 150mm is still not enough?  It is much more efficient and the results much better (IMHO) to use a lens of the proper focal length, even with a Micro4/3 camera at 20mp, than to do that.

Yes, I find the idea of owning one of these cameras very attractive but from a practical sense, it just wouldn’t work for me—now.  Maybe later down the road when I would choose to limit my photography to just walking around cities, small towns, photograph intimate scenes, etc. where the single focal length may make sense.  Right now I still make a lot of photographs using a wide variety of focal lengths to reflect my vision in my current photographic work.  If that vision changes, then I’ll revisit this topic and potentially consider one of these cameras—especially if it is small and kind of pocketable.  But, until then, I’ll stick with cameras with interchangeable lenses.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

All content on this blog is © 2013-2024 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.