We all know that a lens is a very important part of the camera. It is what captures memorable moments, it what portrays your vision to the world. In order to get the right lens, you will need to know your camera. What works wit it and what doesn’t?
1 – Not every lens will fit your camera. For example, if you are a Canon user forget about using any other (Not always true as you can some other make that are Canon mount) make of lenses such as Sigma, Tamron even Nikon. However, if you are a Nikon user you have a wide range of choices.
2 – Decide on the focal length you need or want. This affects how much you see in front of you eg: Wide angle brings more details to a scenery than a basic kit lens.
3 – Last but not least you need to decide on whether you want a Prime lens with a single focal length or a Zoom lens
They are loads of other things to consider but here are the basics when you are starting out.
Standard Zoom Lenses: This being the standard 18-55mm lens that come with camera kit. They produce great pictures with fine details and amazing sharpness. They have decent size apertures which means that they can be used in low lights too. Most recent lenses allows the user to use automatic or manual focus at a switch of a button (AF-M button located on the side of the lens)
Nikkor standard kit 18-55mm lens
Canon 18-55mm lens
IS or Image stabiliser reduces blurring during exposure. Very useful for long exposures
Wide angle lenses: Any Landscape photographer best friend. Great for scenic views where background and foreground detail is important. This lens speciality is to make subjects appear further away than they actually are, meaning they look smaller to the naked eye. They are useful when you can’t stand back far enough to get all the details you want into the shot. Tall buildings etc……… Mind you they come with their price
The Nikkor 14mm f/2.8D ED AF Ultra wide angle lens
This particular lens come with a hood which helps blocking out sunlight
Fish eye Lens: Under extreme circumstances ultra wide angle lenses can turn straight and horizontal lines into Curves. That’s what a fish eye lens do. Are they useful? I would call a must have lens but i have seen some great, crazy, funny shots taken with it
Nikon 10.5mm F2.8G AF DX IF-ED Fisheye Nikkor
A picture taken with a Fisheye lens
Canon 8-15mm Fisheye lens
Prime lenses: These are lenses with a fixed focal length which no zooming in or out. You do all the work yourself. Since there’s no variable focal range these lenses have loads to offer. Optical performance is superior to other lenses, they much smaller too and very light, wider maxime apertures. Most 50mm prime lenses offer wide apertures of as low as f/1.2. What does that means to us amateurs? It means it great to be used handheld with no FLASH, great for portraits as background is thrown out of focus too.
Nikon 35mm 1.8G AF-S Nikkor lens (I sooo want that. No favouritism here)
Canon 50mm 1.8G prime lens
Macro lenses: They allow you to take extremely closes pictures of a subject. Some prime lenses have this option. They allow to represent your subject at 1:1 meaning life size shots.
Other lenses include superzooms which are nicknamed “jack of all trade”. They cover every need from 18mm wide angle to 200mm telephoto. The idea behind this lens is that you won’t need to change your lenses as often. The question that should popping into your mind right now is “What’s the catch?” In fact there is a big one. The longer the range, the more more optical quality suffers, low contrast, poor edge sharpness and distortion. I’ve been disappointed enough by electrical equipments and they are certain things i just refuse to try.