A Simple Guide To Camera Lenses

Everything you wanted to know about choosing the right camera lens for the job in an easy to read guide. We take you from macro to zoom and bust a few bits of jargon on the way.

Sensors

Before we begin talking about lenses, we must mention sensors. The size of a sensor on your DSLR will determine the result you will get from a lens. Higher spec DSLRs have a full-frame sensor, whereas entry-level cameras have a smaller sensor purely because they are easier and cheaper to manufacture. When a lens is used with a smaller sensor, it effectively crops and magnifies the middle of the image rather than capturing the wider view. So if you want to make the most of a lens, make sure you choose a camera with a full-frame sensor.

Now on to the lenses!

What you need to know:

• The focal length of a lens is measured in millimetres


• Wide angle lenses have shorter focal lengths and fit lots into a picture


• Telephoto lenses have a longer focal length and magnify a small area

Zoom Lenses

These lenses are ultra convenient as you can easily change the focal length just by twisting the barrel. Zoom lenses are ready for any shot on any occasion. Typical focal lengths are 14-24mm, 18-55mm and 70-200mm. Disadvantages? Price. The complicated nature of manufacturing a zoom lens makes them a pricey piece of kit for your camera bag.

Prime Lenses

These are of a fixed focal length, and are considered excellent for portraits and low light situations because they usually have a large aperture such as a f2.8, f1.8, f1.4 or even an f1.2 – which makes them a ‘fast’ lens. The disadvantage of a prime lens is that you can’t make adjustments to the focal length, you’d have to change lenses instead. However, the advantages outweigh this inconvenience as prime lenses produce a high quality image, and they are less complicated to manufacture – therefore cheaper than a zoom lens. Common focal lengths are 50mm, 85mm, 35mm and 300mm.

Wide Angle Lenses

There is a definite clue in the name here. A wide angle lens can ‘fit a lot in’ to a picture. To be a wide angle lens, the focal length needs to be 28mm or less. Wide angle lenses are particularly good for interiors, landscapes and for taking pictures of large groups of people. Disadvantages? They are prone to distortion. This could be at the edges, or if you are using it for a portrait a subject in the middle will appear stretched – but this might be an effect you are after, and not a disadvantage at all! A fisheye lens is an example of an ultra-wide angle lens.

Telephoto Lenses

If you want to get some great details of something that is far away, you need a telephoto lens, which is a lens with a focal range of anything from 35mm to 300mm and above. These capture a small area and magnify it, essentially bringing the subject closer to fill the frame – great for surreptitious portraits of people far away, animals in the distance and close-up action of a sporting event. Disadvantages? The resulting image can appear to be a little ‘flat’. This is because the lens compresses the image, making it difficult to determine distance between things in the photograph.

Macro Lenses

A dedicated macro lens has a focal length of anywhere between 50mm to 105mm, and is used to capture extreme close ups. These lenses allow the photographer to get up close to the subject and keep it in focus. Most dedicated macro lenses allow for life-size magnification, also known as 1:1, this means that the image is magnified to fill the shot, it is not the same as zooming in.

Now we want to know what your favourite lens is and why! Share your shots with us in the comments below!