DSLR cameras or mirrorless system cameras often come with a kit made up of camera housing and zoom lens, which opens you up to the field photography using wide-angle through to lightweight or medium telephoto lenses. How do you get started with a kit lens such as this, what do you need extra lenses for and when should you choose a different lens when making your purchase? You will find the answers in this guide.
A matter of perspective: Wide angle, normal focal length, telephoto focal length
The most important factor when choosing your lens is focal length and the focal length range for zoom lenses. The focal length sets the picture angle together with your camera’s sensor or film format.
The angle for a standard lens is about 46 degrees. It is wider for wide angles (hence the name) and smaller for telephoto lenses . These rules apply to zoom lenses as well as to fixed focal lengths.
A zoom saves you from having to change lens within its focal length range and allows you to cut down on photographic equipment.
So why are lenses with fixed focal lengths still available? The additional factor of focal length adjustment calls for more compromises when designing lenses. For anyone wanting to get the best possible image quality, maximum intensity or minimum depth of focus, fixed focal lengths are the only option.
A few examples (focal lengths apply to small screen or full-format cameras):
- lightweight to medium telephoto lenses, 80 to 135 mm, for portrait shots (low depth of focus with large aperture for expressive photos)
- lightweight to medium wide-angle lens (45 to 24 degree) for indoor shots. There are special adjustable and pivoting tilt shift wide-angle lenses for taking photos of buildings. They can be used to correct converging lines when taking photos.
- Standard lens or portable telephoto lens for reprography
- Macro lenses for image dimensions greater than 1:1
- Lenses for available light photography (fixed focal lengths with high light intensity, usually aperture 1.2 to 1.8)
- Fish-eye lens for special effects up to 360-degree panoramic view
- Long focal length (mirror) telephoto lenses for astrophotography
Zoom or fixed focal length for on the road? It’s all in the mix
While geometrical aberrations can be spotted straight away when taking photos of buildings (straight edges of buildings seem like they are falling, bow-shaped etc.), they are largely irrelevant when it comes to taking portraits or photos of landscapes.
Landscape photography benefits from slimmer photographic equipment with zoom lens, but you will need to change lens at some point. Start off with a wide angle if you want to take a panorama of a wide landscape. But if you want to pick up details, you’ll soon be disappointed if you’re using a 200 mm telephoto lens. The greater the zoom range, the larger, heavier and more expensive the lens.
The smaller sensors of popular system cameras will make things easier for you. The APS-C sensor makes a 16 to 35 mm lens seem like a 26 to 56 mm one. This means it provides you with a wide angle range from a landscape photography point of view and can also be used as a standard lens. A maximum aperture of 2.8 means you can easily use a teleconverter to double the focal length and halve the light intensity.
You can use a handy 70 to 200 mm telephoto zoom to cover the wider telephoto range. With the APS-C format, the zoom corresponds to a focal length of 112 to 320 mm. A lens case will suffice for carrying your lenses. You don’t always need a photo bag or photo backpack. Another good option is the typical kit lens, for example an 18 to 55 mm for APS-C, which you can use as an all-round lens.
Nicer blurred range at full aperture, better image quality: Full-frame photography
Smaller sensor formats such as APS-C are not the best way of getting a nice blurred range (“bokeh”) in the background when taking a portrait. In this case, we advise getting hold of a camera with a larger full-frame sensor, which in terms of size resembles a camera slide reminiscent of the days of analogue photography and so provides better image quality.
This, together with suitable high-aperture lenses, allows you to create nice soft blurred areas, but this can come at a much higher cost.
Filters: a lens accessory
Optical filters have been used in photography forever, particularly with analogue black and white photography. In the age of digital photography, many filters that you will be familiar with from the days of analogue photography are no longer necessary and can even be counter-productive.
With analogue cameras, a good example of this is skylight filters which filtered out UV lights and which also had a slightly reddish hue to them.
In certain shooting conditions, they served to compensate for increased blue casts in the photos and overall provided for warmer colours. When the filter is fixed in front of the lens of a digital camera, the white balance of the camera re-adjusts the effect, which renders the filter obsolete.
It’s a similar situation with UV filters, which in contrast to the skylight filter just filtered out the UV light: In contrast to analogue film material, digital image sensors do not react to UV light, and the modern lenses made up of six lenses or more sufficiently filter out the UV rays.
Nevertheless they are still used but for a different reason: to protect the front lens. But you will need to spend a bit more if you want to protect your front lens because cheaper filters can create “ghost images”, which are reflections from light sources in the photo, especially at dusk or at night. Therefore you should only use high-quality filters that minimise the risk of ghost images.
Richer colour, reduced reflection, stronger contrast: The polarising filter
Another filter that still serves a purpose today, not least for design reasons, is the polarisation or polarising filter. By rotating the filter, you can suppress or emphasise unwanted reflections on non-metallic surfaces.
In addition, it dramatically enhances some colours and contrasts in the photo. For example, the blue of the sky can be transformed into a powerful “postcard blue”, which makes the white clouds much more rich in contrast.
If linear polarising filters were used previously before analogue camera lenses, circular polarising filters need to be used with modern models with their auto-focus and measuring features. You need to expect light loss of around two aperture stops depending on the shooting situation.
All-rounder or specialist? The individual choice of lens
System camera kits usually contain an all-round zoom suited to everyday and holiday photography: Portraits and group shots, memories of landscapes and city views. But they have their limitations if you have more creative ambitions or you are more demanding when it comes to quality of image.
If this is the case, you should refrain from making hasty purchases of any old camera-lens-bundle and buy a lens that is more in keeping with your own ambitions: A lightweight 35 mm wide-angle or 50 mm standard lens with apertures of 1.8 to 2.8 would be ideal for street photography, for example. And a lightweight telephoto lens with a focal length of 80 to 100 mm with the same apertures would be ideal for portrait photography.
If you already know where you want to go in terms of your photographic ambitions, when purchasing your camera, choosing your first lens will form a good basis for expanding on your photographic equipment in future.
Image source: Fotolia / 70534164 / bluedesign
