Shopping for lenses can be a daunting task at first. I’m here to demystify the process and help you select the types of lenses that will best suit your photography needs. Some lenses are ideal for landscape photography, while others make great portrait lenses. Many are versatile and can meet a wide range of needs.
I’ll start off with an important tip. I recommend buying a camera body only, as opposed to a DSLR that comes with a standard kit lens. The kit lens is a general-purpose lens, not of the highest quality. My first DSLR came with a kit lens. Once I purchased higher-quality lenses, it took up permanent residence in the back of a drawer. Don’t make the same mistake. Save those pennies and put them towards better lenses that are a good fit for your photography needs—save up for some “good glass” (gotta love photography street talk).
To understand the variety of lenses, it is important to understand focal length. Focal length is the distance, measured in millimeters (mm), from the glass of the lens to the image sensor, where the image is formed. It determines the field of view, which in plain English means how much of the scene your lens is capable of recording. For instance, a wide-angle lens (35mm or shorter) can capture an expansive view of a landscape.
Prime lenses have a fixed focal length and do not zoom in or out. These lenses tend to be sharper than zoom lenses because there is less glass and hardware between the subject you wish to photograph and your camera’s image sensor.
Zoom lenses offer versatility. You can zoom in (increasing focal length) to achieve a narrow field of view or zoom out (decreasing focal length) for a wider field of view. (My Canon 24–70 mm f/2.8 zoom lens actually has a reverse zoom, where the lens barrel gets longer as it zooms toward its shortest focal length.) Zoom lenses work well for portrait photography because you can zoom in very close to subjects without having to be physically close to them. These lenses are also a good choice for sports and wildlife photography. Some zoom lenses have a fixed maximum aperture that you can access at any focal length. Others have a variable maximum aperture, where the maximum aperture size becomes smaller as you zoom in. If you have the money, lenses with a wide fixed maximum aperture tend to be preferable (e.g., 24–70mm f/2.8 lens), as you can access this maximum aperture at every focal length, which allows for beautiful shallow DOF no matter the focal length and lets more light hit the image sensor in low-light situations, which means you get faster shutter speeds in low light. I own a 15–85mm f/3.5–5.6 lens that has a variable maximum aperture. I love the expansive focal length range I have access to (wide angle to medium telephoto), but I’m sometimes frustrated in lower-light situations because I don’t have access to a wide aperture at every focal length, which in turn forces me to up my ISO to obtain a faster shutter speed. Tip: If you are interested in a super-long telephoto zoom lens (300mm+), you’ll notice they are quite pricey. A cheaper alternative is to purchase a teleconverter or extender, which attaches to your medium or long telephoto lens and magnifies it.
Wide-angle lenses record a wide-angle view of the scene and are great for landscape photography. A fisheye lens is an example of a super-wide-angle lens that distorts your photo, curving it for a cool effect.
Macro lenses allow you to shoot subjects extremely close-up. If your budget will not allow for a dedicated macro lens, you can purchase special macro extension tubes that attach to your regular lens and increase magnification. (A true macro lens will do a better job, but the tubes will definitely make a difference.) I use my 100mm f/2.8 dedicated macro lens for macro photography and sometimes as a general-purpose or portrait lens. Its wide aperture capability lends a nice blurred background to my portraiture work.
What does it mean to be a fast lens? Prime lenses that have a wide maximum aperture or zoom lenses that have a wide fixed maximum aperture that’s available at every focal length (like f/2.8) are known as fast lenses. That is because these wider apertures let in more light, therefore allowing for faster shutter speeds; thus the name fast lens. They are especially useful in low-light situations.
Wide-angle focal lengths are 35mm or shorter. The shorter the focal length, the wider the field of view will be.
Standard focal lengths (50–60mm) are natural-looking and equivalent to what the eye sees. This range works well for street photography.
Telephoto focal lengths are generally 85mm+. Keep in mind that camera shake is a side effect of telephoto lenses and can often lead to blurry pictures. I’ll give you some tips to help with that later in the book.
Important note: The focal lengths aforementioned are for a full-frame DSLR. To determine equivalent focal lengths for a cropped-frame DSLR, you have to divide by your lens’s crop factor. So a 50mm focal length on a cropped-frame DSLR with a crop factor of 1.6 would actually have the same field of view as an 80mm focal length on a full-frame camera. Here’s the math: 80mm divided by 1.6 = 50mm. Please note that all focal length suggestions given in this book are for full-frame DSLRs. If you have a cropped-frame DSLR, you will have to divide by your camera’s crop factor to determine equivalent focal length. If you don’t know what your cropped-frame camera’s crop factor is, do a good ol’ Google search.
FOCAL RANGE TIPS: Medium telephoto lenses make great portrait lenses. An ideal focal length range for portraits is 85–100mm, although I have definitely used shorter focal lengths with close-up shots. You do have to be careful with wider-angle (shorter) focal lengths because they can distort facial features and make them look larger than they are, but if you take the photo close-up and straight on, it’s generally not an issue. Telephoto lenses zoomed in make great portrait lenses because they compress the background, making facial features appear smaller.
Use longer focal lengths for things like sports photography, wildlife photography, etc.—subject matter that you can’t get physically close to. Long telephoto lenses are in the range of 120–300mm, while super-long telephoto lenses, which are ideal for wildlife photography, are 300mm+.
LENS RESOURCES:
A variety of lenses available on the market are made specifically for your mobile phone or mobile tablet. You can often find telephoto zoom, wide-angle, fisheye and macro lenses in the form of a lens kit—multiple lenses all in one. Although they can’t achieve the same level of quality as your DSLR lenses, they certainly broaden what you can achieve with your smartphone camera. Olloclip, Photojojo, iPro lens and Sony make attachable mobile phone lenses.
Some of the most common DSLR Scene modes include Portrait, Landscape and Close-up/Macro modes.