Despite buying cameras which have been specifically designed to take and make use of different lenses, a large number of photographers only ever use the kit lens that their DSLR or interchangeable lens camera came with. But it's really not that surprising, picking the right next lens can be daunting, which is why we're going to try to help with our guide to life after the kit lens.
- Lenses are arguably the most important part of your camera set-up, they make or break your pictures. They control the image that's projected onto your imaging sensor, and ultimately what photos you are taking home. As such, many photographers would prefer to shoot with an okay camera and a great lens, than a great camera with ho-hum glass attached. But knowing the importance of good glass is one thing, it's another to know what lens will give you the creative freedom to capture the photos you want to get.
To the uninitiated, lenses are baffling tubes of glass with numbers and confusing acronyms printed on the side. Hopefully, this guide will help you understand which lenses can be used to achieve what, why others can cost more than a family car … and how there are some sub $150 bargains which could change your photography forever.
If you currently only have the kit lens your camera came with, the short answer to this question is that as soon as you have the cash available, you should go out and get a fast normal prime lens or a telephoto zoom. The longer and more considered answer is that you need to think about the type of photographs you currently take. You need to understand how different lenses could improve your current photos and allow you to take ones that you currently can't. If that all sounds a bit confusing, read on.
The almost sentence-long collection of letters and numbers on the side of a lens barrel can tell you all sorts of things about a lens. But the details which you should probably pay the most attention to are those which detail the focal length, maximum aperture, lens mount and format type.
Focal length is expressed in mm and a higher number means a bigger zoom, while a lower number mean the lens can be used for wider shots. As a rough reference, the human eye is said to see about the equivalent of 30-50 mm on a full frame camera (more on that later). A number lower than 30-50 mm will take in a bigger view than you naturally see, while higher numbers mean focus will be on a smaller aspect of your view.
If the lens has a focal length range with two numbers (say 24-80 mm) this means it's a zoom lens and is capable of zooming and being used at any point across that range. However, if there is a single focal length number (50 mm for instance) it's a prime lens, so taking in more or less of the view will require you to get closer or further away from your subject. Traditionally, primes have been considered to be optically superior to zooms, because trade-offs have to be made when producing zoom lenses. But that's not to say that some zooms are not better than some prime lenses.
To make understanding focal length more difficult, the same focal length lens gives different views on cameras with various sensor sizes, because of the crop factor (the sensor only takes up part of the projected image). As a result, many manufactures give a 35 mm-format equivalent on lenses designed for cameras with smaller sensors and in this article descriptions are based on on 35 mm-format. Therefore, if your camera has a smaller sensor, and there's a good chance it does, you'll need to consider this when deciding which lens you need.
If you're using a full frame camera there's no calculation needed, a lens will give you the field of view you'd expect from its number. If your camera has an APS-C sensor (Nikon DX DSLRs, Sony NEX…) it has a crop factor of 1.5 - meaning you multiply the lens focal length by 1.5 to get its equivalent 35 mm-format focal length. For Canon APS-C cameras that number is 1.6, for Micro Four Thirds cameras it's 2.0 and for the Nikon 1 series it's 2.7.
That means a 35 mm lens would give a field of view equivalent to 56 mm on an APS-C camera like a Canon 70D and equivalent to 70 mm on a Micro Four Thirds camera like the Olympus OM-D E-M1. On a Nikon 1 it would act like a 95 mm lens does on a full frame camera.
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