The Rise of the Wide-Angle as "normal" lens.

[voodooless]

Have 35mm 1.4 and 90mm 2.0 on APSC. Both have their merits. I love the compression of the 90 when there is a bit more body in the frame. For head shots, it doesn’t always work as well as the 35.

 

[bluefuzz]

Am I, one of the few, this annoys?

As the saying goes: The best photos are taken with the camera you have with you ...

Everyone has a smartphone in their pocket, so that's what gets used. While obviously a longer lense is preferable for portraits people make do with what they've got. I don't take selfies myself, nor do I much look at other peoples selfies so no it doesn't really bother me. And I know how to fix it in Photoshop if the need arises ...

 

[Frank Dernie]

I detest wide angle portraits which is what we mainly get in these days of photograpic diarrhoea.
A 70 to 90 mm lens gives a view as my eyes see it but of course this is useless for a "selfie" and whilst I own lenses much wider I don't use them much, just for particualar "effects".
When I was 15 I was the only person I knew with a camera, shot B&W and developed and enlarged my own work but couldn't afford to take many pictures, one 36 exposure roll per month or so. Nowadays everybody who has a 'phone has a camera and, probably starting because the cost is zero, takes pictures all the time and never makes a print and displays it.

My 15 year old grand-daughter was upset by how awful she felt she looked in photographs and refuses to be photographed. I showed her she looked normal if taken with a normal focal length (90mm) she obviously had no idea it was because a mobile phone is pretty well the worst photographic device ever made for portaits.

I suppose in our crowded world and with the world full of phone and reportage wide angle pictures is what we have got used to.

The word photography means a very different thing today than it did in 1965.

 

[mhardy6647]

Ahh the Nikon D40. An underrated little camera.

my son's first DSLR -- our daughter still has it (after it passed through my hands for a few years).
If memory serves, it bricked after several tens of thousands of shutter clicks (as expected) -- Nikon fixed it up for a nominal (reasonable) fee and it lives still.

The aforementioned son has bought me two entry level DSLRs (factory rehabs; he's quite fiscally prudent) over the ensuing years (decades, now).
He does buy himself nicer ones albeit used.

 

[litemotiv]

Ahh the Nikon D40. An underrated little camera.

It was my first digital camera and i loved it to bits, it's a great beginner/enthousiast camera and the stock 18-55mm lens was very good too.

I went to a D200 from there which was a better camera in some areas but i still missed the overall fun factor of the D40 every now and then, the D200 was a lot more work to get just right.

 

[Chromatischism]

I started with a D80 and within a year went to a D300 which was fantastic.

 

[steve f]

I preferred 70mm to 90mm...

Me too.